Dimensions Book One: Links Rewrite
by Blazing Chaos
Summary: Retrieving the Digimon was Takato's endless dream. Only thing is, he didn't exactly imagine a virus sweeping across the internet, a strange force playing its hand and learning something about a friend that could change things forever between them. Rukato
1. The End

**DISCLAIMER: I don't own Digimon, but I do own the original characters introduced in this story and my other stories (except where stated otherwise here or elsewhere by myself).**

**A/N: **Hello newcomer (or existing reader obsessed with reading everything I write), and welcome to Book One in a long series called Dimensions. I'm glad you've decided to pick up from the rewrite and move from there, since I hope it will give you a glimpse of my writing quality to come. There are so many events still in store for you, so many mysteries, so much excitement and so much drama. Oh, and pebbles.

You'll know what I mean in time, trust me.

As for couplings, Rukato fans will certainly enjoy this, but don't be dissuaded if they aren't one of your favourites – this series is far more than that. Oh, and if you _have_ read this before, I would appreciate it if you didn't put any form of spoiler in your reviews or comments on this book, since, after all, it would only ruin it for people reading through from the start.

So, with that all dealt with, I invite you to settle down with a glass of your favourite drink, get yourself comfortable and enjoy **Dimensions Book One: Links**…

Cheers go to Crazyeight for beta-reading. Oh, by the way – Rika, Takato, Henry, Jeri, Kazu and Kenta are all 13 in this story. Ryo is 14, and the younger members are the proportionate ages.

* * *

**DIMENSIONS**

_**BOOK ONE**_

_Links_

**Rewrite**

By Blazing Chaos

* * *

**CHAPTER ONE  
**

_The End  
_

* * *

**THURSDAY, 8****th**** NOVEMBER 2007**

* * *

The digital plane.

A place between physical reality and digital reality.

A place where up is down, down is up and right is wrong. Or perhaps left.

It was a purgatory, mostly empty and white, with the only interesting thing to the rare visitor passing through being the crisscrossed grids and lines of data, hardly worthy of tourists. But, on this occasion, livening things up somewhat (in the same way just about anything new would) was something much more significant, namely a huge red gelatinous mass known as the D-Reaper. This was the same D-Reaper which two weeks prior had been a major threat to the real world's civilisations, life and, via its link with the Digital World, two entire universes. The overwhelmed Tokyo Ward of Shinjuku and its Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building at its core, it had the potential for total devastation of everything that existed through one simple directive:

Delete.

It was a principle by which it had operated since its construction out of bits and bytes of data, for the D-Reaper was nothing but a computer program following its human-given orders, albeit it had been intended to combat the earliest viruses on the net, not living sentient beings. And, in time, it had been supplemented by the advancements of the Digital World where it had been placed, giving it the abilities of sentience by taking upon itself the data of those Digimon, that it deleted. In its own way, it had undergone its own digivolution, its own metamorphosis, until something which could easily have been dragged to the trash can on a computer without a second thought became the ultimate case of the perils of 'unintended consequences'. A piece for the history books, even if it had seemed at the time that no-one would be around to write them.

And yet, in that bleakest moment, it was the original creators of the Digimon (which arguably in some respects meant they had inadvertently been the root cause of the D-Reaper's metamorphosis), the Monster Makers, who redeemed themselves. They forced it to degenerate, with the help of the Digimon Tamers, the only people able to enter its grasp and escape alive, and that was only with the help of their programming allies and their 'red card'. Unfortunately, it proved to be a process which resulted in a heavy emotional toll for all as they found themselves, thanks to that very same card and an oversight in its programming, torn from those they had come to love: their Digimon. The creatures that the D-Reaper had once been bent on containing and eliminating if they ever surpassed their specifications with their evolutions had in the end been its downfall. Even so, it had been a somewhat Pyrrhic victory in the end – neither side had truly won.

However, this story is not about the D-Reaper, and that terrible October when the world had been on the line.

It is, instead, about those Tamers who had stopped it and their Digital Monsters (universally better known as Digimon to all those who had heard of them) who fought gallantly alongside and even went so far as to become one with them. It is about their lives as they grew up and had to face threats beyond their imagination, fears beyond contemplation, and emotions beyond anything they, or anyone, had ever experienced before. Every new friend brought a dark side, every solution brought a thousand new problems, and happiness, whilst gleeful, never lasted.

Regardless, all stories must start somewhere, and this one was particularly unusual, at least compared to "once upon a time".

For starters, most tales do not feature a huge destructive blob, or, for that matter, the aforementioned Digital Monsters scattered about behind the D-Reaper. The successful final plan against it two weeks prior inadvertently meant that they, the Digimon themselves, were also being devolved back to nothing. Their fate had thankfully been prolonged by the sheer mass and complication of the D-Reaper. It was highly compressed and dense in nature, and hard for the programming currently overrunning it to break down, even with the sheer resources of the combined global computing power behind it. Unfortunately, whilst awaiting their unfortunate destruction, boredom had set in for these small, mostly blob-like Digimon sitting around in small clusters, tedium broken only by random comments by one particular Digimon to try and lighten the mood, with little success.

"Wow, watch the jelly go," said that particular Digimon, a small greenish blob called Gummimon, even though he was better known usually as Terriermon, whose trademark wit he lacked none of in his in-training form in spite of his distinctly higher voice. "So much for Guilmon eating it in desperation."

"Ooh, I never thought of doing that." This one was a small red blob with bat ears, trying to raise a stumpy leg to his chin like he could as a rookie but failing. Nearby, there was a small purple blob with a brownish impish face, shattering the dreams of the hungry one.

"It'd have deleted you if you'd tried Gigimon."

"Aw…" Gigimon groaned. "Now I'm hungry – thanks Yaamon."

"It's a pleasure Pineapple Head. Particularly since now you're more of a head than usual."

"You are one to talk," a short, brownish cream blob with a triad of horns on her head and short, flap-like ears noted. Her voice was far more polite than most. "I don't think it's fair at all to taunt him like that."

"Just the way of the world Kokomon – it's the way things have always been, even before you came along."

"Excuse me if I'm wrong, but I don't think a few months is exactly the same as always." This comment came from a small blue furry creature with a blue and striped tail and no legs, coupled with a white-face. The steel horned helmet adorning him, however, covered up most of his visage, orange eyes peering out through a pair of eyeholes in the helm. This was Kapurimon, and, oddly, he was the most animal-like of all of his forms, for normally he was rather more robot-like in his Guardromon and Andromon forms at champion and ultimate level respectively.

"Pipipi," agreed another creature adjacent to him, the only one not in the second-to-lowest Digimon form of In-Training, waving his arms and smiling. This was MarineAngemon, a pink fairy described as 'adorable' by all but the most tomboyish of girls. The heart on his chest seemed rather out of place to match him with his rather more masculine partner, Kenta Kitagawa. In spite of that, they had made an impressive team thanks to a combination of MarineAngemon's healing abilities and Kenta's care for the little guy, particularly in terms of translating his usually incomprehensible chirps into words understood by most. They were powerful allies to have, even if solely in a supporting role.

"Calm down," insisted a murky blue and cream fish like-creature, one taller than long and featuring small fins, both running down its back and poking out from either side of his body. He was topped off by a larger cream horn on top and a likewise-coloured diamond above his beady eyes. "We don't want to fight in our last days."

"Okay, fine," Yaamon submitted, sighing in boredom. "Last days, huh? Makes a 'mon worry about whether he's spent his life right." He had more than enough reason to worry about such, given his tricky history with his fellow tamed Digimon. Indeed, he had even gone so far against them to have attacked and killed one of their own, before finally seeing sense and ending up trying to make amends by being a vital part of the fight back against the D-Reaper. Even if he had been forgiven by most thanks to that, it wasn't something that would ever be forgotten, not least because with him would die Leomon too. _"Maybe that's penance."_

"Gee, way to put a damper on things Hopmon," Gummimon moaned, sensing the dip into depression of the mood, in spite of his attempt at humour before.

"How long do we have left?" Kokomon asked the group as a whole.

"It appears that it is nearly completely deleted – I would not give it very long at all," reported another blob, with the slightest hints of dejection in her deeply-matured voice. This one was yellow and furry, with small fox ears and a long bushy tail, at least for her size.

A sigh went up amongst the group of blobs, facing the reality of death straight in the face for all its fearsome features. The unseen wave of deletion continued to sweep through the D-Reaper unimpeded, reducing it to nothing. It would soon do the same to them, as their own bodies worked against them. So much for promises of reunion.

"Way to ruin the mood Viximon," finally said Gummimon to the yellow one, his voice now lacking its previously cheery edge.

"I do not think that right now there is anything to be cheerful about," she said sternly back to him, before taking on a mournful tone. "I will never be able to see Rika again."

"Pipipi."

"I will never get to see Suzie again."

"Or gallant Kazu."

"Or moaning Henry."

"No more time to play, huh?" asked the final of the creatures, one who had never been anything but an in-training level. His name was Calumon, and, whilst having once been the catalyst for digivolution, the living embodiment of the light able to make his fellow Digimon transform into more powerful form, this green-eyed, white and purple fairy was now just a fun-loving guy. Not that that had changed at all once he had lost his unique ability, of course, even if right now it seemed that the games were over. "I'll miss everyone," he mused sadly, even he, the endless optimist, sensing the crushing mood around.

"I guess this is it for Ryo and me." _"At least Milleniummon will die too…at least I hope so."_

"God, sentiment, ugh. Like I haven't had enough of that living with you guys. Although…I guess I'll miss Ai and Mako – never really got to know the guys."

"No…"

A sharp yet high-pitched hiss caught the ears of all of the Digimon, beady and bright eyes looking around to the reddest of them all, one who seemed far less accepting of his fate.

"I can't die."

Now, for most, that would've been the end of it. Every bit of insistence in the world wouldn't save you when the end came - even the stubborn die. Yet…Gigimon was resolute, nay, Guilmon was downright determined that this couldn't be it.

"I have to see Takato again – he promised me!"

"Promises are made to be broken Gigimon," Yaamon tried to say, but he was cut off at the last moment.

"Not his! Not Takato's!"

Viximon gave the slightest of smiles, impressed even though it was futile. Guilmon was never one to give in, not when he knew he had Takato to get back to. Or, for that matter, food. She wished for such optimism -she was a realist, and she knew that their opinions on the matter were irrelevant – their death was imminent. The last vestiges of the D-Reaper now vanishing pressed that point home. The thought almost brought a tear to her eye, but she suppressed it. Rika wouldn't have wanted to see her cry. Rika had never seen her cry.

Yet…all this reasoning, all these assumptions from so many Digimon, completely forgot one matter.

The rule of having no ability to prevent their death only applied to ordinary Digimon, and Gigimon was definitely no ordinary Digimon.

"Takatomon promised me that he'd see me again, and _HE WILL!"_

To the surprise of all around, he was suddenly bathed in red light, pulsing brighter and brighter as his golden eyes burnt with a determined and unwavering glare, far from that of his bewildered and rather scared friends.

"Something tells me this isn't going to be good," Gummimon noted, slipping backwards, greatly unnerved and wanting to be as far away from whatever was about to go down. Red lights, an angry Guilmon and pulsing were definitely not good signs in his book.

Unfortunately for him the light didn't stop at a glowing Gigimon, instead becoming bright enough that it burst out onto the grid around. Parts of it shot rapidly up the wireframe, rather like a lit torch paper, yet unlike the analogy it oddly didn't eliminate them in the process. All the while, it continued to expand at an only-slightly slower pace as the frightened Digimon were enveloped far quicker than they could possibly have escaped, particularly since most could do little more than simply hop along.

"Yup, I was right," added the green wit-filled blob. "Hey, are any of you listening to…?"

"**Gigimon Digivolve to…"**

Alas, Gummimon's calls were interrupted, as whatever was happening to Gigimon reached its final phase, lines swirling around the Digimon and forming an egg-like shape around him. It broke down his form into a green wireframe, before an explosion blew data back onto it, forming a dinosaur-like figure with a glowing red mark on his chest – the Digital Hazard. From it, his skin expanded rapidly outwards to his arms, legs, tail and head, before he cried his name.

"…**Guilmon!"**

"How on earth did you manage that Guilmon?!" Kapurimon asked, but received no answer, as instead the dinosaur simply continued his determined streak in tone and glare.

"I'm out of here!" he growled, the pulsing mark simply increasing in intensity.

"_The Digital Hazard…I've never seen it activate on Guilmon like this. Last time…it was because of Takato's emotions, but now it seems to be because of his," _Viximon mused, watching as the sharp claws of her friend glow red at their tips. _"This could cause untold havoc and destruction – if only I could warn Rika."_

"Geez, I don't like the look of this," Yaamon said, a rather large hint of nerves in his voice. He had been on the receiving end of the Digital Hazard in the past, and he knew its sheer strength and ferocity.

"ROCK BREAKER!" Guilmon finally cried, sweeping his claws downwards and, to their surprise, cutting a whole in the very fabric of the world, a sear in the plane. At first it was purely black, but as the gobsmacked and speechless in-trainings stared on, it widened out to reveal a scorched and dusty desert, a bright blue sky above it stretching out in all directions. It was a familiar desert, there was no doubt about that, made even more so by the large bluish green floating orb in the sky – Earth.

Home.

Guilmon made no hesitation in walking straight through it, not taking any time at all to check if it was stable, real, or even being surprised that it existed at all. Lopmon quickly worried that he would be scattered instantly into data upon passing through, but his appearance on the other side, and, indeed, a wave back, made it clear it was at least relatively safe. Or, as Gummimon put it…

"On the other hand, what the hell, it's better than death!" he cheered, bouncing forth and landing in the sand on the other side, seemingly safely, before turning back and grinning. "Last one through is data!"

And, on cue, those words prompted a quick swarming through of the almost all of the others, only the briefest glances taken at each other for security before it became clear they had nothing to lose. Fortunately, as they reappeared on the other side, it became clear that their gamble was right.

One stayed behind, however, staring like a cat caught in headlights at the wave of deletion advancing toward her, threatening every one and zero in her make up and surely being enough of an incentive to follow her comrades.

Viximon watched at the lines of the Digital Plane, still covered in the bizarre red offshoots of the Hazard, glowed a blood red and pulsed before brightening, the process repeating continuously and seeming unhindered by the threat of deletion at all. It was such a perplexing sight for her, so…entrancing, and yet, most confusing of all, so…familiar.

Was it simply from when she had seen Megidramon, and had felt the sheer effect his mere existence had had on the Digital World around her?

Yet, this time, the Hazard seemed not to destroy – indeed, all it wanted to do was spread, for soon enough, as far as the eye could see was a tone of red. Never before had this bizarre world witnessed or been host to anything as eventful as this. Was it about to be destroyed? What effect would that have?

The furry creature grimaced, glancing back through the portal. Confused gazes were already egging her on to follow as they one by one left the rather large pile-up of Digimon that had abruptly formed. She knew why she hadn't gone yet, of course, and her thoughts regarding the Hazard were nothing but an attempt to shift her mind from the subject.

The darkest thought running through her mind was that deletion would have been a welcome relief, a relief from the awful burden she had kept for what seemed like an eternity now, even if reality had been far shorter. Yet, she wouldn't – she had no promise from her Tamer like Guilmon had, but she still did not want it to end here, even with the risks she ran as a result. There was so much still to know about the human world, and about life, the universe, and everything.

"_And Rika would never have wanted me to go down without a fight either," _she mused with the slightest of smiles on her face, imagining the face of the girl who she yearned to see again more than anything in the world. She turned, looking through the sear again.

"Come on foxy face!" Yaamon called through it, completely unknowing of what ran through the creature's mind. "What's holding ya up?!"

The slightest rolling of eyes preceded a sharp and quick bounce, launching the creature straight through to land slap-bang on top of Yaamon. Uttering fake apologies for her error, she shifted aside, ignoring his complaints and looking back to the portal, its form shimmering more and more rapidly. It didn't look like it would last much longer.

"Gee, and you call me slow!" Gummimon moaned, as with a sharp slicing sound upon the air the gateway finally sealed closed, vanishing from sight.

"I was observing what Guilmon did to that world," Viximon said, a white lie. "Guilmon, do you know what that was?"

"Uh…what was what?" As he put a claw to his chin, the band of in-trainings couldn't help but feel that there was a rather distinct difference in size here, all of them craning to look up at him. MarineAngemon floated, meanwhile, gazing down towards them all, his presence a reminder that they weren't completely defenceless right now, definitely a good thing in a place which traditionally had a habit of throwing up enemies at the most unexpected of times. Not least the risk of them all being unexpectedly grabbed by a data stream.

"You don't remember?" Hopmon asked. A gentle wind ruffled through the desert level, thankfully not enough to send the group flying through the air.

"Nope – I just remember wanting to be back with Takato and then we were here."

"Geez, you take amnesia to new levels Pineapple Head," Yaamon groaned. Of course, he had a pretty good hunch what had happened – the Hazard sign didn't flash without good cause, an ironically orderly occurrence for something usually so chaotic. "That mark on your chest went nuts."

"Did it?" Guilmon looked down, the symbol now back to its usual black with no sign of its previous activation.

"That is awfully bizarre," Kapurimon mused, mirroring the confusion shared by a lot of the group.

"Maybe we all imagined it?" Calumon said optimistically, evidently not fully understanding the implications of what such a thing meant.

"I don't feel any different," Guilmon added, shrugging and being surprisingly quick to dismiss such a thing. "Ah well, can't be important if I can't remember it."

Viximon frowned. It seemed that, without Takato, Guilmon lacked anyone in particular to tell him when he really needed to be worried, at least when the source of the worry was himself. From fear of him digivolving to, well, fear of him digivolving, the pair had always had a parent and child relationship. _"Or, a mother and child relationship," _she added, amusement in her tone of thought at the memory from a few months ago.

"Meh, whatever it is, I'm cooking like a tomato in this heat – I'm all for getting out of here quick."

"I concur," Kapurimon added.

"Count me in," echoed Hopmon.

Gummimon squished downwards before bouncing rapidly up to a quickly-frightened Guilmon, landing slap-bang on the middle of his head and paying no heed or apologies as the dinosaur looked rather dizzied by the whole experience.

"Hey, tell me before you do stuff like that," he moaned, the Digimon simply ignoring him as he peered down to talk.

"Can you get up on your hind legs?"

"Uh, like this?" Guilmon asked, looking fit to topple over.

"Hey, steady! I've got no arms!"

"Oop, sorry." The dinosaur settled down a bit, enough for Gummimon to use him as a stable vantage point as he slowly turned round, peering over the horizon. "Nothing as far as the eye can see – from one plane to another plain."

"Please control your humour," Kokomon asked, some groans going up amongst the group.

"It won't help – we've all tried," Viximon told her, a frown on her face. The day Terriermon stopped joking would be the day the world ended for sure. "Regardless, it appears that we are going to have to get along for a while on our own."

"Yeah – there's nothing but sand and rocks for miles around," Terriermon sighed. "Gee, was this place _really _worth defending?"

"Without a doubt – it's our home." Kapurimon sounded somewhat offended, particularly since he had been in this other world for far longer.

"There is one place nearby," Calumon mused, pointing one of his ears upwards at the huge earth orb in the sky. "Maybe we can fly up there?"

"Pipipi?" MarineAngemon chirped, looking curiously to the rest of the group as he blew a bubble, one which floated above them temptingly.

"Fat chance of that," Yaamon disagreed, the bubble beginning to drift quickly upwards, no doubt by the call of its fairy-like master. "That thing is almost impenetrable – take it from a 'mon who's been there."

"Hey, I remember now! I went there too, and there was that evil monkey."

"The worrying thing is that he's not joking," Gummimon noted, a rather loud cackle reaching their ears as the bubble burst on the unseen 'ceiling' above, causing MarineAngemon to gag back in surprise.

"Pipipi!" he squealed, alarmed, before sighing a long "pi…"

"So, we can't get to the real world on our own, and we can't digivolve much without our Tamers," Hopmon summed up their position.

"We could go see the sovereigns," Kokomon suggested, her past with them known to all in the group. She was the last surviving Deva, the only one who saw sense enough to break away from the group bent on kidnapping Calumon and, eventually, invading the human world, all by order of their master.

Gummimon gagged even more than MarineAngemon had before. "Zhuqs?! Fat chance there!"

"Yeah, I'd rather risk my chances with the ceiling," Yaamon agreed, looking upwards at the Earth orb far above. Ai, Mako…Jeri. All of them so tantalisingly close. What were they doing? Was Jeri okay? Would he ever get a chance to make amends?

"Even if we wanted to see the Sovereigns, getting to the highest level as we are would be impossible," Hopmon noted, frowning. "I'd say the last thing we can do is just pick a direction and walk."

"Right," Gummimon agreed, gesturing forward where Guilmon was facing with his whole body in lieu of his now-absent arms. "That way!"

"Then come gallant souls, we have a long way to walk," declared Kapurimon.

"Do you mean bouncing?" Kokomon asked, the prospect not appealing to her in the slightest.

"Can't we all just float there?" Calumon asked, gazing up to the pink fairy still floating above them and keeping a watchful eye on the surroundings.

"Pipipi," MarineAngemon sighed sadly, shaking his small head.

"I think that translates as 'they won't last'," Hopmon said. "And I think we could use a look out too, so looks like we're bouncing."

"Unless…" began Gummimon, wrapping the small tentacle-like edges on his bottom partly around the bat-ears of the rookie he still sat on. "Everybody on Guilmon!" he cheered from his somewhat tenuous position.

"Meh, beats bouncing all day," Yaamon decided, leaping onto the dinosaur's back, soon to be followed by most of the other Digimon, apart from MarineAngemon, who had the benefit of being able to fly, and Viximon and Kokomon, who questioned the fairness of using Guilmon as a horse. However, the prospect of walking all day far outweighed the injustice on their friend, and they quickly joined the others, making empty apologies for their actions on the basis that everyone else was doing so.

Guilmon moaned in annoyance as he felt the sea of in-training Digimon swarm onto his back, adding so much to his weight and pushing his feet down slightly into the baking sand. "Oh, but that isn't fair on me – I don't get to ride anyone."

Gummimon took up the job of fielding that question from his position on Guilmon's head, a familiar position from when he had been Terriermon in the past even if his grip was now a lot less. It wasn't like Guilmon would be moving very fast, on the other hand.

"Well you shouldn't have digivolved then. Now go horsey!"

Guilmon moped, frowning deeply while MarineAngemon and Viximon gave him looks of sympathy, ones that went unseen as he struggled with the load on his back. Finally and reluctantly, he began to walk, every step pushing him down further into the sand and forcing him to lift his back right up to avoid his friends falling off.

It was going to be a long journey.

And it was only the beginning…

**TO BE CONTINUED….**

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**A/N: **Right, if you want to keep reading from here (if I haven't yet put up another rewrite chapter), start from the first chapter of the original Book One (or of the original rewrite if I have still left it online), and the point you need to continue from will be quickly apparent I hope. Enjoy the original version, and hopefully the quality won't put you off. Of course, I have been told that I can be a bit hard on myself with the quality of the older books at times, so don't worry too much.

Or, alternatively, why not stick with the rewrite, at least until the end of Book One, and have the mysteries revealed to you in the same way readers back in 2007 did for them? After that, feel free to skip on to Book Two - I'm only going to rewrite up as far as Book Four at the maximum.

Also, as I'm sure my long-term readers will point out, this is my second rewrite. Quite simply, I wasn't happy enough with the first as a foundation for continuing, so I decided to go back and completely overhaul it, and this time I expect it to be more successful as a result. In any case, the goal is the same: fix up the older stories (Books One, Two and Three) to the quality of the newer ones (Books Four, Five, Six and Seven), adding chapters in, elongating previously rushed scenes, explaining a lot of the unexplained, streamlining the plot and removing any holes, and ensuring that all characters are far better dealt with. I don't plan for future books to depend solely on events in the rewrite, however, so don't worry on that front, although as each chapter is released of this version it will become the 'official' version as such. I plan to have an update schedule cycling through the new books, this and a spin-off (usually Stratagems), with emphasis on the new books naturally. This should also help to combat any writer's block I might encounter, which is a definite benefit.

Finally, this story I've slightly differed the dates from the original based on some quotes from the dub saying that it was October when they were in the Digital World, and September beforehand. I'm setting out the battle against the D-Reaper as having concluded in late October, and the events here are almost two weeks later. This also differs from the original rewrite by a week or so.

Until next time…

B.C.


	2. The Unexpected Discoveries

**DISCLAIMER: I don't own Digimon, but I do own the original characters introduced in this story and my other stories (except where stated otherwise here or elsewhere by myself).**

**A/N: **Hello again – if you're reading this, then evidently I am truly being committed to this rewrite, which is definitely a good thing for all. This chapter, again, was beta read by Crazyeight. Enjoy!

This chapter was, well, completely chewed up by Word and this website, at least in terms of formatting, so I have a special request for reviews. If you spot anything that seems like it should be in bold or italics, or any really long paragraphs that seem like they should be split up, or any sections where two characters talk on the same line, could you make a note of it please. I've tried to fix all I can, but there's a limit. Cheers!

* * *

**DIMENSIONS**

**BOOK ONE**

_Links_

**Rewrite**

By Blazing Chaos

* * *

**CHAPTER TWO**

_The Unexpected Discoveries_

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**WEDNESDAY, 14****TH**** NOVEMBER 2007**

* * *

**16:29 JST (Japan Standard Time)**

Tokyo is one of the largest cities on earth and a result, as any of its residents would be quick to inform you, that meant that it becomes very hard to get away from the constant hustle, bustle and noise. Every corner you turn, every step you take, you risk accidentally walking straight into someone coming the way, not least if you're not paying attention.

Which brings us to this particular child who, in spite of often being so far up in the clouds that breathing should have been difficult, somehow managed to hide a small (yet larger than your average pet) dinosaur in the city for a few months without anyone finding out about him.

Well, that wasn't exactly true. Certain elements of the government had known of his presence right from the start when he had first been born into the world, and it hadn't taken long for him to be spotted. Yet, for every person quickly laughed at for claiming in some local paper that there was a monster in Shinjuku Central Park, the cunning (or perhaps last resort) hiding place for this creature for most of the day, there were two dozen who had merely dismissed it as a trick of their eyes.

Nonetheless, it had been quite bizarre that this boy had not only managed to hide what was commonly called a Digital Monster in the midst of this crowded megacity, but had actually walked out in public with him too, under the pretence of a Halloween costume.

It had been a miracle it had worked, and that people were far too polite to ask. Those that did, usually children, were impressionable and imaginative enough to believe that he was simply a piece of fabric over a friend, albeit a fairly complex and impressive one. After all, Digimon had been a fairly popular series a few years before, and still had its fair share of fans. Their mothers, on the other hand, were usually far too busy to care.

In the end, however, their secret never lasted – other Digital Monsters, Digimon, also quickly burst into the real world (known as bioemergence), and left no doubt of their presence. And these were no ordinary, scared and confused bioemergences, who unfortunately had to be put down like rabid dogs. No, these were on a mission, a mission that would stand in the way of nothing, and one which they had been given by their all-powerful master.

The Devas.

The Juggernaut and Mihiramon, an 'unexpected freak weather event' with a centralised storm vortex and thunder and lightning so constant it sounded like screaming, something supposedly from the very back of any meteorological handbook (even if investigations by some turned up nothing).

Sandiramon and the closure of a subway route for a month due to an 'unexpected well collapse' above one of its stations, leading to the writing off of a whole train (even if it never went to the scrappers).

Sinduramon. A fault at the hydroelectric dam.

Pajiramon and Vajramon, rumours suggesting either an 'escaped prisoner with a gun' or a marketing campaign, and later water damage at the stadium.

Indramon – nothing but poor construction of a particular highway using substandard concrete, and leading, of course, to sanctions against the contractor, with whom Hypnos was currently in a rather interesting legal battle.

All were explainable, at least to those not there at the time, and all passed people by. The sudden run of bizarre accidents and incidents all over town did leave some conspiracy theorists suspicious about poor quality construction due to a cult within the government leading to choosing the wrong contractors, but ironically this simply made the public believe the government even more. After all, conspiracy theorists were always making up nonsense about stuff based on little evidence, and reality could never be that interesting.

And then came Vikaralamon.

The damage was so extensive right from the start, not least thanks to the long series of sharp earthquakes preceding it and being widely registered on every Richter scale from Fuji to Aso. People were, as a result, on their guard, but even an earthquake, particularly in such a prepared country as Japan, never did damage like this. The huge boar had cut a swath through the centre of Shinjuku, buildings devastated and the military and Digimon Tamers presence had been undeniable. The targets weren't notable or contained enough to be a terrorist bomb, the damage pattern didn't match the earthquake with weaker buildings somehow surviving whilst stronger ones crumbled, and, most importantly of all, everyone saw it. If not personally, then through a hurried piece to camera on the news, a shaky piece of phone footage, or the sight of helicopters roaring overhead.

Digimon were here to stay. As quiet as things had gone in the aftermath, no-one was denying it.

And yet…then, after the even more catastrophic devastation of the D-Reaper, a huge red mass covering vast areas of Shinjuku and swallowing everything inside, and its defeat by the Digimon Tamers, everything had gone completely silent again. No attacks. No defence, either.

The Digimon were gone.

Regardless, the damage still showed on every street corner. There was a huge bill still to foot, and doubtless the area would never be the same again, not least with how many had sworn never to return to the blasted area at the heart of it all.

Some, on the other hand, never wanted to leave, never wanted to forget those memories. Which brings us back to this messy brown haired boy, his trademark blue hooded jumper and grey pants barely noticed thanks to the far more prominent yellow-rimmed goggles on his head, wear from all the use and misuse of their unknown former owner pressed into every surface. Even though the boy himself had taken good care of them when he could, the vast majority of his own damage had come from battle after battle after battle, explosions and debris taking their toll.

It made no difference – they weren't used (much) for seeing underwater. They, instead, in their little own way, defined him as a person. He was a Gogglehead.

And he fitted that description down to a T, in looks, in personality, and in sheer dumb luck.

"_Why'd she have to catch me doodling again?" __he thought. _Didn't saving the world get them any time off school? Or any slack at all?

Apparently not, at least to their teacher, Nami Asagi. This was in spite of seeing them (in fact, rather more of them than any of the parties concerned would've wished) fighting the D-Reaper as incredibly powerful Digimon. They had saved life, family and city from harm. They had been heroes.

Yet she had still assigned them all their work to catch up on from their days out in the Digital World. It was only marginally more than the rest of the class too, for everyone had missed a lot when the school was closed.

Appeals that they had taken the initiative and supposedly 'studied' on their brief sojourn in the school whilst fighting back had unfortunately fallen on asprin-blocked ears.

The world should have seemed so full of life again, the blight upon its existence gone, but they had thrown the baby out with the bathwater, and so much of what this child had fought for had been lost. It hurt, not least because for the most part those around him were cheering for their continued existence. Outside of the group, only their parents seemed most capable of understanding, and that was because they had seen how happy the Digimon made their children.

They knew that life had to go on; they knew the lesson which all children eventually learnt:

Life can be such a disappointment.

The messy haired Tamer didn't need to look up to see the building he turned towards, the _Matsuki Bakery, _one like so many on this quiet (at least in Tokyo terms) residential backwater. Short advertising signs, promoting the day's special offers, the headline in the newspapers and sometimes just a mascot of the establishment decorated every shop, and this was no exception. Right outside, sure enough, was one such thing, hung from a bar and gently moving in the autumnal breeze. On its face, a large somewhat rough image of a red face, a pair of bat ears out to either side.

He paused, almost out of a show of respect, as a true frown graced his face. Not about homework, not about boredom, but about the name of this funny creature.

"_Guilmon."_

Far from simply being the name of the unique bread roll they sold here, this creature had been a part of their family, and their bakery's uniquely real mascot. At least, up until recently. That was why Takato had drawn the sign, even though it was his father's idea.

As much as he had been praised for his abilities (and the third useful application of them, after Guilmon and Growlmon's original drawings), he couldn't help but notice it was a poor imitation. Every blemish in the colouring, every shaky line, even the way the eyes just didn't look 'right'.

Was he forgetting his friend? Once or twice, he had found himself looking at the few photos they had of them as a group, like from their ill-fated holiday to Okinawa. That had been the first time he had seen a mega level, and they had been surprised to make it out alive. Could he keep that face in his mind? It seemed impossible; he'd been in his imagination since he'd first been conceived, since, of course, that was all the bread-scoffing monster had once been, before those almost-mystical Digital Gnomes had played their part.

And he would see him again – they had a promise, after all.

He knew that wasn't the case, however. He had a promise to Guilmon, not the other way around, and grounded here on earth, he didn't know whether he would be able to fulfil it. As much as he would once have moved heaven and earth to protect his friend, he now found himself impotent to move anything at all.

Wandering forward, he left the memories behind, putting his key in the lock and pushing his way through the side door straight into the warmth of their store room to the left of the shop itself. The smell of bread would have filled anyone else's noses with a scent that could only be followed by an urge to buy and eat bread (which probably explained Guilmon's voracious eating habits ever since he had first come to this bakery all those months ago), but for this boy it simply told him that the bread was ready and fresh, something learnt from so many days of working in here. God only knew what it was like for his parents, working in the role ever since his dad had given up his office job when he was only a little kid and his parents had taken the risk of self-employment.

Seeing her smile as she said thanks to a customer and passed change, it was clear that his mother had no regrets about doing so. Sure, life was somewhat dependent on the bricks and mortar around them staying intact, and the 'rainy day fund' that the woman had been so right to set up, but the building had rather miraculously survived through the whole D-Reaper episode.

Heck, it had even been used to make bread.

"Late again, Takato?"

Was it his turn to help out on the till? Takato hoped so dearly that she was just making a comment.

"Uh, yeah."

He held in his sigh of relief as she simply gave a slight smile, turning back to close the till door. "Well, just make the most of it while the evenings are still fairly long. Did you go to the park?"

"…yeah."

"You got a detention again, didn't you?"

How did she always know? Takato sighed, nodding, leading the woman, real name Mie Matsuki, to roll her eyes and cross her arms. She made the boy feel like he was seven again and being scolded for eating the bread too soon.

"You've got a lot of work to catch up on young man, and the world isn't going to sit by and let you mess around." Pausing, she looked to the ceiling for a moment. "I know you're upset, but…"

"Mom, I'm fine, and I know I need to pay more attention. There's just a lot going on lately – the temporary buildings are rubbish and we're always joking that Guilmon could knock them down." At least they were lucky enough not to always have to use them; one end of the school was declared structurally unsafe and wouldn't be reopening for a while. But, it seemed that, whatever hit it, the school would still be open in some shape or form.

The image of his partner charging through the structures just to bundle him to the ground in greeting flashed across his mind. He wanted to smile at the idea, but he simply couldn't. Would that hole ever be filled?

Mie gave an unfounded chuckle, not believing his words for a moment but being distracted by the customer bell chiming nearby. "That's good dear. Your father's in the back doing the taxes so don't disturb him."

Takato glanced down the hallway to the family's computer, one not exactly up-to-date and currently being used by a hunched over tall man, the screen not at all to his height. A befallen look crossed the boy's face. _"So much for doing Ms. Asagi's homework."_

Wandering down, and checking that his mother wasn't noticing him not following her advice, he peered over at the screen.

"Solitaire?"

"You caught me," the man said dryly, turning on his chair with a smile. It was pretty clear where Takato's unbounded optimism had come from. "How was school?"

"Meh, boring as always. What happened to taxes?"

"They were just as boring."

"Uh…huh."

"Takehiro, Takato, are you talking back there?" The call down the hallway made the pair quickly react, the man flicking the spreadsheet back into life on the screen and his son instead rushing across to sit on the sofas, flicking on the television.

"No mom," Takato called, grins of camaraderie and conspiracy flashed between man and boy.

"Sure…Takehiro, you know we're close to the deadline."

"I know mom."

"And don't call me that!"

The man stifled a chuckle as he returned to his tedious task, Takato's attention finally shifting to the news program barking away from the television screen, a piece to camera ending.

"…**leaving many stranded, back to the studio."**

Regardless of the severity of the news, the issues it presented or even the comedy value of it all, the pair of anchors, one male, one female, did the typical thing and continued on as if nothing had ever been said.

"**A new computer virus is spreading rapidly across the computers of the country, seemingly invulnerable to any form of anti-virus protection, and leaving the security industry in disarray."**

The female presenter continued the story. **"The virus displays unusual behaviour in that, rather than having a set pattern of work, it acts almost completely randomly. It has been seen to swap files between computers, corrupt data, and change system configurations."**

"**Attempts to neutralise the virus simply fail as the programs used fall victim to it when run. Itsuki Nobuyuki works for a Kyoto internet security company."** The screen split in two, half from an office somewhere and half remaining in the studio as a middle-aged dark-haired man looking rather tired began to speak.

"**That's correct. I have been responsible within my company for creating a patch for this, and although we have had limited success we do not believe there to be any real threat."**

"**Why is that?"**

"**Once the virus has done its work, it vanishes without a trace and without exception. Although it causes temporary damage, it will eventually run itself out it seems."**

"**Like a bush fire?"**

"**Yes, exactly. It's a hazard for now, but we doubt it will stay that way for long."**

"**Thanks Itsuki, and…"**

"What?" interrupted his father, a surprised and irritated tone to his voice, furious clicking following. "Where'd it go?"

Takato glanced up and across, pushing himself to his feet and wandering across to the computer, just as the man looked ready to bash the screen in the hopes that it would fix whatever problem it had somehow caused itself.

"What's wrong Dad?"

"It must be that virus. I saved the file I was working on and went to look up some rates, and when I came back it was gone."

"Did you check the trash can?"

The man nodded. "Yeah – no luck at all."

Letting loose a groan from his lips; he pressed a hand against his forehead.

"Now I'll have to start all over again."

"Great, I'll never get Ms. Asagi's homework done."

Takehiro shook his head, climbing to his feet and gesturing to the swivel chair in front of the fairly ancient machine "Go ahead; I haven't the energy to start over."

"Really? But mom's been nagging you all week."

"Now I'll have an excuse."

His father wore the biggest grin as Takato sat down, nodding warily."Well, better you than me."

He shuffled the mouse as he tried to remember exactly what his teacher had told them to do for their maths homework, giving his father a chance to refresh his memory. "So, what's going on? If you've got an essay to write this evening, your mother will give you an earful for leaving it until the last moment again."

Takato shook his head, leaning his head on his shoulder as he opened up the web browser, a bored look already on his face before he even began. "Nah – she's saving on paper by having us use this website to do all our maths homework. And worse still, this way she knows when we submit it."

"And if you left it until the last moment."

"Yeah. Sometimes I think she doesn't realise we have lives."

The man laughed, shaking his head in disbelief as the educational website came onto the screen for all its lack of glory. "Son, people have been saying that about teachers since my time."

"Yeah – how long ago was that again?"

"Careful," Takehiro replied to his son's gentle teasing with a smile, shaking his head. "Just try to get on her good side again, okay? After all, having saved the world, she's got to give you at least a bit of credit."

Takato groaned.

"I know it sounds like a lot of hard work, but…"

"No, I mean, the computer's died on me."

"Oh." Takehiro glanced up to the screen, now nothing but a blue screen with threatening writing about the risks of what had just happened scrawled across it, one which made the boy groan again. "It's probably that virus they're all talking about. Try control, alt, delete."

The boy nodded, reaching across and pressing the trio, but to no avail as the screen stayed constant.

His father shrugged. "That's all I know. I prefer a pen and paper personally – I can never understand how anyone could put up with these things."

"Great, now I'll have to reboot it and wait about a decade for it to start."

Even with something as definite as photographic evidence, Takato doubted Ms. Asagi would believe his excuses. He would simply have to put up with the thing and beg it worked. Sighing and bending over, he reached for the power button on the computer itself underneath the desk reluctantly, his father giving a light smile.

"Think, when it's done, you'll have all that free time to…"

The computer suddenly flickered back into life again, sitting on the website again without even the slightest hint of what had just happened, the loading icon finished and the cursor waiting impatiently for some form of input.

"Hey Takato, it's working again – what did you do?"

"Uh…" The boy came up from under the desk, blinking in bemusement at the screen. "Nothing, I didn't even press it."

Unbeknownst to all was the reason why the computer had just suddenly burst back into life again and got on with working as it should have from the start. For, in that brief instant when Takato's finger had been over the button, an unseen small flicker of red light had sparked from one to the other. The only sign at all of anything out of the ordinary was Takato scratching his finger, oddly sensitive all of a sudden but fading quickly back to normality. The boy himself was too confused at the system's miraculous recovery to consciously notice it.

"Well, that's just how they can be I guess," Takehiro shrugged his shoulders, dismissing it all too soon as being just 'another of those annoying things that computers do.'

"Yeah, suppose so," Takato replied, unconvinced and looking at the screen rather bewilderedly before sighing. He sat up as his father gave him a pat on the shoulder.

"I'll leave you to it. Enjoy!"

"Are you kidding dad?" He peered back over his shoulder, but his father was already walking back towards the kitchen in between the shop and the living room, looking rather happier than when he was actually being productive with the taxes.

Looking back to the screen, the boy groaned as he finally opened up the questions, seeing they numbered at least two dozen.

_"Great - not only online, but more questions too."_Just what went through that woman's mind? His eyes wandered to the first one, dismissing it off-hand as impossible before continuing through, quickly deciding that this homework would be mind-numbingly boring and about as easy as, well, fighting the D-Reaper._ "I might be exaggerating too."_ Even the D-Reaper wasn't comparable.

He flicked back to the desktop, pondering taking his father's path and simply playing a game of cards. How exactly was this single piece of homework meant to help him anyway? Given the sheer amount he was given, why would this one make any difference alone?

Then again, that sort of reasoning _never_ worked with Ms. Asagi, and one of his friends, Kazu, had tried it plenty of times. Groaning, Takato retreated from the solitaire icon, deciding that, as much as he wanted a distraction, after all his father had said he couldn't exactly let the man down.

And that was when he saw it. It had passed his glance every time before, that innocuous words document just crouching there on his computer, its title merely a simple date.

**131107**

The date of the day before, no least. Where had it come from? Was this what the computer has spat out when it had crashed? Or was it a virus? Takato, despite being surrounded constantly by Digital things, ironically didn't find himself with much of a grasp of general computing, mainly since usually computers weren't trying to blow him up. Or, at least, not succeeding.

Shrugging, he decided that he would chance it. His father had already lost the tax details, after all, so what was the worst that could happen?

In spite of his dismissal of the risks involved, he found himself strangely uneasy and reluctant to open it, and took a moment to see what was truly inside: a large page of text; not a virus, random numbers and letters, or even something his dad had been working on.

"That's weird." Just what was this thing, and where did it come from? Was it…that virus they had mentioned on the television? Why would anyone even want to make a virus to do this sort of thing?

**13th November 2007**

"_Huh…looks like a diary."_

**Life is boring. So boring. School is boring, and full of cows who are too busy worrying about their fashion style to even realise what they nearly lost. I mean, come on, I expected some praise or something for all the work we did.**

"_Work?"_

**Ugh, I sound like Kazu. I should use the delete key more on this.**

"_Kazu? Do I know this person? Or maybe they're from my school?"_

**I don't miss not meeting up with him…okay, so maybe I don't hate him that much. I wish I could meet up with the others again though. I feel like I haven't seen Takato and the others in months, and I saw them every day until we lost our partners. Sure, I hated camping out in the middle of nowhere and not knowing whether you were still going to be alive the next day, but at least it was fun, and at least I had people to talk to. All it's made me realise is how little anyone in my stupid school cares about me, and how little I care about them. I miss Renamon so much now. I hope she's okay.**

Takato paused, blinking in surprise at what was so amazingly clear to him now. This was…Rika's. "_Rika writes a diary? This is a diary, right? If it is…I can't read it! It's hers! It's her…wait…is that my name?"_

**I wonder how Takato is doing.**

"_No, come on Takato! Resist it…"_

**Maybe he's still complaining about all the homework he gets – he wouldn't shut up about it at one point.**

"_Ugh, Rika would kill me for doing this."_

**Still, it must be pretty nice to be with friends at school. Even Renamon couldn't appear to my stupid classmates, they're have a fit. But mom's so obsessed with me succeeding and not losing my social class that I haven't even tried bothering asking her to move elsewhere, maybe even to their school.**

Takato sighed. This was all so personal. He felt a rising well of guilt in the pit of his stomach, but found himself powerless to stop reading, his eyes working on their own.

**It'd be great to be able to chat to Takato and all of the others every day. It always seems like something stops me from just calling them up and asking them out, and without Renamon I can't exactly wander around the city randomly in the hope we'd find them.**

**Okay, okay, I'll admit that I wasn't writing this diary entry just to go on and on about how boring school is.**

Takato raised an eyebrow.

**And I just noticed I wrote his name three times. God, it's like I can't get him out of my bloody head. Stupid, stupid, stupid…jmgeueuhtrdgrdhrdgkhgrdkhkgdrbrkh**

Both brows now furrowed in bewilderment and suspicion. "That was weird." And what was she talking about? Was she talking about his name? Why? And why couldn't she get him out of her head? Had he done something wrong?

Now, he couldn't help but read on; even his guilt had given up to curiosity.

**Grandma just asked why I hit the keyboard. Like I could really tell her – she's helpful most of the time but I'm sure with something like this she'd be just like mom. At least she lets me out of the house to do things without nagging me endlessly about where I've gone or whether I want to go shopping. I. Don't. Like. Clothes. I thought mom and I were doing better – why doesn't she just realise that I don't care about fashion? We must have some common ground, right? **

These were Rika's personal feelings…things he didn't even know about. How could he learn this without even talking to her? He felt like he was betraying her trust, but the sight of his name on the next line once again forced him onwards.

**Yeah right. I need to get out of this place, talk to someone. Takato always seems to know how**

**NO! Stupid mind. Stop it.**

"_She wants to talk to me? And what's with stopping mid sentence? I thought people who wrote diaries always did it properly. Then again, this is Rika."_

**Why do I even care? I just want to meet up with the others, that's all. I wouldn't mind an excuse…to meet up, I mean.**

**With them.**

**Not just him.**

_"Stop…reading!" _At the back of his mind, Takato already knew that his homework wasn't going to ever get done.

**Oh, I give up. I miss him. I have fun around him, except when he's obsessing over what's obviously going on with him and Jeri. Even the dumb-dumb twins must know that's going on – it's so cringeworthy, I hate it. She always gets attention from him without having to insult him or call him names. I hate that. So much more than I want to.**

_"Wait…wait…wait…wait…wait…they know? Is it really that obvious? Wait, why does Rika hate it? Hold on, she _misses_ me?"_

**Fshfshgushgwsguhu**

**I want to delete that. I want to delete all of this. Why am I even still writing? What on earth made me want to write this thing? Stupid idea of trying to get this crap out of my head. At least this way no-one can laugh at me for it. So I think of weird things, don't we all? Takato definitely does.**

**Ugh, him again!**

"_She doesn't like thinking of me?"  
_

**So what? I just think he's funny. He's Takato, he's a walking disaster, and I just like watching him trip over his own feet – everyone does. It's just what I like about him, that's all. Just that and another thousand other things.**

"_What? Wait…she…likes stuff about me? I thought she hated how I seem...well…am all clumsy. This is so confusing."_

**Dgdggdrjhbrughdrkjgbgdurfhg**

**I need to stop hitting my head on his thing or my headache will last the rest of my lie.**

**Great. The key next to g doesn't work. Uck.**

**Rika**

So.

He'd done it.

He'd read every last word.

He knew every last word, as much as his urge not to break Rika's trust in him now tried to make him forget it all. His mind was too molten to even try such a thing – everything had been flipped on its head by this sudden discovery, one thrown onto his lap all of a sudden.

There was no doubt about that either – this had to be that virus they mentioned on the television, it was just too much of a coincidence to be anything else.

Maybe that was where his dad's tax return had gone? Of course, he knew that, just like Rika, he was avoiding something, something never said but so painfully obvious in-between the lines…

**I haven't seen Takato and the others in weeks**

**I wonder how Takato is doing.**

**It'd be great to be able to chat to Takato and all of the others every day. It always seems like something stops me from just calling them up.**

Rika didn't even have most of their numbers – not much more than his, Henry's and Jeri's. Maybe Ryo too, although he somehow doubted she used it. He doubted she used any of them really, apart from those rare occasions when his ordinary days were interrupted by a surprise phone call from a girl who once wouldn't have given him the time of day.

**And I just noticed I wrote his name three times. God, it's like I can't get him out of my bloody head. Stupid, stupid, stupid…jmgeueuhtrdgrdhrdgkhgrdkhkgdrbrkh**

She seemed so…stressed. Maybe depressed even? Why was she slamming her head against the keyboard? Could having him in her head be_ that _bad?

**Like I could really tell her – she's helpful most of the time but I'm sure with something like this she'd be just like mom.**

**I need to get out of this place, talk to someone. Takato always seems to know how**

**NO! Stupid mind. Stop it.**

**Why do I even care? I just want to meet up with the others, that's all. I wouldn't mind an excuse…to meet up, I mean.**

**With them.**

**Not just him.**

**Oh, I give up. I miss him. I have fun around him**

**She always gets attention from him without having to insult him or call him names. I hate that. So much more than I want to.**

**I want to delete all of this.**

**Ugh, him again!**

**It's just what I like about him, that's all. Just that and another thousand other things.**

He hoped this was all a practical joke, maybe just Kazu trying to fool with him. But the boy couldn't even use a computer without hitting it a lot, let alone hack or do anything even remotely complicated.

Maybe Rika was having a laugh? Maybe she was writing it for something? Maybe she was drunk? Did she even drink? It would be a nice explanation

Anything but what the simplest one was. Takato felt a lump in his throat, bigger than guilt, bigger than worry, bigger even than fear, and far more like a combination of all three.

Rika seemed to be falling for him.

Rika_ was_ falling for him.

Rika **had **fallen for him.

The last line of Rika's diary was quickly revised, a scrambled addition to its end.

**Rikagdughertuhgrtughrugheughreughedugherugehrguiehrvuehgbrbhuhrdasfhhjksfhkj**

**TO BE CONTINUED…**

* * *

Heh, hopefully, this diary entry was a lot more interesting and complex than the original. I still don't entirely understand the whole 'smoke and mirrors' not mentioning the actual names thing I did originally, since there was really no point to do so, but ah well. Seemed like a good idea at the time, I suppose.

Anyhow, hope you enjoyed this, and be sure to let me know what you think. Or not. As always, I leave feedback entirely up to the discretion of the reader.

Until next time…

B.C.


	3. The Elephant in the Hideout

**DISCLAIMER: I don't own Digimon, but I do own the original characters introduced in this story and my other stories (except where stated otherwise here or elsewhere by myself).**

**A/N:** Thanks to Crazyeight for beta reading.

* * *

**DIMENSIONS**

_**BOOK ONE**_

_Links_

**Rewrite**

By Blazing Chaos

* * *

**CHAPTER THREE**

_The Elephant in the Hideout_

* * *

**WEDNESDAY, 14TH NOVEMBER 2007**

* * *

_**Matsuki Residence, Shinjuku Ward**_

_**17:00 JST (Japan Standard Time)**_

She…liked him.

Rika Nonaka…liked him.

He glanced over the document again, trying to find some other explanation. Maybe he'd read it wrong?

**It's just what I like about him, that's all. Just that and another thousand other things.**

Maybe not.

Why?

The simple question rang in his mind, leaving him bewildered just as much as those that followed did. Since when? Where had this all started? What could he do?

How did he feel about it?

He shook his head briskly, trying to dismiss it all and oddly feeling exactly like how she must have felt, writing the infamous entry in the first place. Why would she even write such a thing? Was it really that bad that she had to get it off her chest that much? Why couldn't she talk to him? Was he a bad friend? Was he unapproachable? He definitely felt like a bad friend now, having read it.

Placing his hand on his forehead, he tried to figure out what he could do. It was only five o'clock – she would be awake to talk if he called her. But…wasn't that a bit impersonal? Worse still, if he did that, she would definitely know he had seen it – she probably wouldn't even want to talk to him anymore. This was Rika they were talking about, after all.

Other things bugged him too. Did she hate Jeri? No, wait, that wasn't what she said.

**She always gets attention from him without having to insult him or call him names. I hate that.**

If she liked him, and he always seemed to be obsessed with Jeri…maybe that did grate on her a lot. Maybe she was…jealous?

But this made no sense. This wasn't Rika. He'd never…seen this side of Rika before, at least. It was so confusing, like learning that unbeknownst to you your best friend is actually a superhero, or a God, or an Esper, time traveller or alien. This couldn't be the same Rika who had once mocked him for loving her…could it?

He was just showing care…right? That was all…right?

The other hand came to his head, as he quietly groaned, not wanting to call his parents' attention. That was all he needed.

Heck, maybe it was what he needed? He didn't feel too sure of much at all anymore. Maybe this was just some big setup? Or a dream? Rika had always said he was a dreamer – it was how they had met in the first place, or, at least, how he had met her.

Reaching out to his arm, he gave it a quick pinch.

"Ow," he moaned, quickly moving his hands away from his head and rubbing where was now sore. This definitely wasn't a dream.

Thing was, Takato had the feeling it wasn't a setup either. Who would've gone to such lengths, after all? And how would they have even got it on his computer? Not to mention how they knew so much of what he thought would be private memories at best.

So it was real.

Probably.

It was that nagging 'maybe not' which was preying on him the most right now. Sure, he could act on what he had now learnt, but…what if he just made a fool of himself?

Okay, so Rika was perhaps just a little used to him doing that, but this wasn't tripping up (literally or figuratively) – this was serious. And what if it were real? How would she react if he did tell her that he actually knew about this all?

He wanted to be honest, not least because he knew he completely lacked any ability to keep a secret effectively. How he had hidden Guilmon from his parents for so long as he had defied explanation. If he didn't tell her, what would he think every time he saw her? Could he get it out of his mind? And Rika, if she ever found out that he knew and didn't say, would undoubtedly be extremely annoyed with him breaking her trust. Once you had lost that, there was no chance of ever getting it back again.

So he had to tell her.

Then again…how could he? No doubt she would never give him an opportunity to mention it – after all, why would she? This was Rika, a girl who had changed an amazing extent since those early days but who still didn't wear her heart on her sleeve. In fact, who did with this sort of thing? He didn't.

Yet another frown graced his face.

Why hadn't he told Jeri? Sure, there was always the typical argument that the opportunity had never come up, but he knew himself that it was complete nonsense – she wasn't just the nice girl in the class who he secretly fancied but never really spoke to. Since he had become a Tamer, and for that short period…

Takato paused to sigh.

…for that short period where she had been a Tamer too, and even beforehand, for that matter, he had had a fair few chances, from the time he had gone to her for advice about getting Growlmon to dedigivolve to the time they were both in that creepy and crooked house in the Digital World and he had found the letter from his mother. Tiredness came and went there, and doubtless they could have afforded to have had a simple chat about things – they had definitely had a moment, and it was a nice memory in any case.

Yet, despite that, his mind hung far more on the former, recalling her reaction to his questions about making his friend smaller. Naturally, she didn't know about Guilmon, and, in retrospect, it was a somewhat stupid question, but also looking back, her response nagged at his mind. She had just assumed that he was talking about making a girl smaller, something she had clarified and laughed at once she knew about his 'pet'.

Maybe she didn't have feelings then – so what? People didn't get together because they both liked each other to start with…he could have somehow made her see him that way since.

Then why did he doubt himself?

Pondering about how 'crushes' worked made his mind wander back to his present predicament, namely the one a particular girl had on him. Was this the same? He couldn't say he entirely liked Rika to start with, not least because their first real encounter was a fight, but he had been willing to give her a second chance. Sure, at the time, he had worried he was being a tad naïve, but it had paid off in the end.

So if Rika really did see him as more than a friend…then…how did he see her?

She was…nice.

Not in the way that Jeri or even Kenta were, but…different. The kind of person who would be there to kick the arse of someone who'd hurt you, and then only make a few small jokes whilst bandaging you up. The kind of person who'd stand up for you.

But Takato knew that descriptions didn't even come close. Rika was, and forever would be, Rika.

His mind at a stalemate with itself, Takato realised he had only one option, one he had realised in hindsight with similar issues in the past would've been worth pursuing. He had to talk to her.

**17:07**

The computer screen clock gave him a tricky decision to make. Go find her now, or wait until tomorrow and risk his mind never letting him reach this point of action again.

Pressing down on the desk, he made his decision and pushed himself to his feet. Whilst reaching over to turn the computer off, he paused upon seeing the file again, sitting there and almost mocking him about his newfound problem, and it in itself brought yet another issue to his mind.

"_She won't believe me."_

The 'dreamer' could imagine it now – she'd just blow him off, call him a silly Gogglehead or a 'lover boy', and then deny the existence of the entry entirely. He couldn't blame her – the idea that it could end up on his computer seemed too farfetched for even him to believe, and he'd seen it with his own eyes.

He reached to a nearby shelf, lifting a USB pen drive off it, the one his father used to use for backup before it ended up being too small. It would be perfect for what it needed to do now…

* * *

_**Katou Residence, Shinjuku Ward**_

_**17:10 JST**_

"**So have you talked to your parents about it?"**

"No – my dad's not easy to talk to, and my…my stepmother just wouldn't understand."

"**Why wouldn't she understand?"**

"I-I don't think anyone could understand."

"**What about your friends, the other…what do you call yourselves again?"**

"The Tamers. I don't know…they went through so much for me…and I haven't really talked that much about all this. They know I'm seeing you, but…"

"**Yes Jeri?"**

"I don't…want to put it all on them. They lost their Digimon too."

"**I presume they too had a kind of…partnership, would that be?"**

"Yeah."

"**A…"**

"A…"

"**You talk first."**

"I…no, you."

"**You had something to say there Jeri."**

"I-I was going to say that some of theirs were for a lot longer than mine, and they lost a lot more. I-I can't have got to know Leomon as well as they knew their partners."

"**I have met plenty of people in my work who have forged strong relationships very quickly. Although I can't entirely understand, you must've gone through a lot with your fellow Tamers, correct?"**

"Yeah, we did, even before I met Leomon."

"**Then why do you feel you would be burdening them?"**

"Because…because they went through a lot of trouble to save me."

"**About that – I'm afraid the records given to me by Hypnos aren't too clear. Could we perhaps talk about it the next time we meet? I have another patient in a few minutes."**

"Oh...okay. I'll try."

"**That's all I ask. Are you feeling better thanks to this conversation?"**

"Yes, I think so." _"No."_

"**If you call again in half an hour, we could continue this, but not for too long. I would suggest that you at least talk to one of your friends, particularly if you have any more bad days like today. Feel free to contact me tomorrow at any time, and regardless I'll see you at our next appointment."**

"Okay…thanks."

"**It's nothing, I hope tomorrow is better for you. See you soon."**

"Bye."

With a beep, the voice and crackle died away, her brown eyes gazing at the cell phone's screen for a moment, seeing their reflection in it and trying to search for some sign of the emotion she felt. A sign to cover up, lest her stepmother or father enter and fret anymore about how she was feeling. The last few weeks had taught her that pity, whilst accepted at first, grew painful after a while as it left one with no confidence in one's own emotional abilities.

The mobile bounded across the sheets and to the other end of the bed, before the brunette fell back, bashing her head slightly when she misjudged where the wall was on her bunk. Rubbing it, she groaned, muttering to herself about how the day was simply getting worse and worse.

Had it actually been a bad day? Or had she simply been lingering on her emotions, on her memories and her worries too much? She couldn't tell anymore.

She twisted round to lie correctly in the bed, putting her hands behind her head and falling onto the pillow with a thump. She found her mind so full with thoughts that she couldn't help but wait for that brief yet heavenly moment of simple sleep, between the frustrating tossing and turning in attempts to reach that nirvana, and the nightmares which always quickly succeeded it.

Turning her head and reaching out, she grasped the device which every morning reminded her of the constant weight on her mind, but which she didn't have the heart to throw away or consign to the bottom of a drawer. In the centre of its yellow-ring, static continued endlessly on the screen. Her hand holding it fell down against her chest, holding it close.

A knock rattled against the door, a call of "dinner" through it.

It was only five o'clock, and yet another sour day still had a way to go for Jeri Katou.

* * *

_**Shinjuku Park, Shinjuku Ward**_

_**17:29 JST**_

The cool, crisp evening wind brushed past his hands as he wandered towards his distant destination, over the other side of the park. There were far quicker routes, yes, and there were far quicker ways to walk too, but a combination of nagging nostalgia and reluctance to reach that end point made him choose this way and that pace.

He didn't have forever, though. His mother had made it perfectly clear that, if he wasn't back for dinner, she wasn't about to reheat it. Alas, he couldn't really explain the imperative nature of this task, which perhaps would've bought him a tad more empathy from the woman.

"_Bad timing too – I haven't done my homework yet. If mom doesn't kill me, Ms. Asagi will. Someone up there must really hate me, huh?"_

His fingers tightened around the slightly dented surface of the grey pen drive, grimacing as he considered its contents. His insurance against being ignored.

But wouldn't it be better if he were ignored? She would know he knew regardless, and the ball would be in her court…right? That was how Rika worked…right?

"_Ah, who am I kidding? She'd probably just avoid and insult me more."_ Even without that, he knew his own mind wouldn't let him forget, and would nag him until the end of time. He had to sort this out, and soon.

Not that he knew what he wanted out of it, of course, besides not completely destroying his relationship with the fiery-tempered girl.

Did she really write a diary? Part of Takato, the part that had taken in all the 'stories' about her as fact, the 'legend' of the Digimon Queen namely, couldn't begin to imagine her writing such a thing in a billion years. Yet, the other half of him, the one who had seen the alternative, perhaps more 'real' side of her, was quickly conceiving a mental image of her sitting down with a laptop and venting her frustrations.

Of course, they were frustrations aimed partly at him, so perhaps the 'legend' wasn't entirely untrue, but still…the image in his mind seemed oddly…good. Something that Rika wouldn't admit publicly in any case, and something she would swear death on anyone who knew.

He gulped, clutching the drive and laughing sheepishly at it.

At least he would get out of homework this way. Unless their teacher was in a particularly bad mood.

Looking up from his daydreaming, he found he had taken his usual path into the park, hammered out by routine to the extent where even the setting sun, or, perhaps even a blindfold, posed no issue for him, one which led him squarely to the steps leading up to the large, concrete hut in the midst of trees that they nicknamed the 'Hideout'. Once the home of Guilmon, his Digimon partner, it now stood vacant as per whatever it had originally been designed for. An evening wind breezed past its ever-open iron barred door and a scattered a handful of dust from the rather large piles of earth inside, no one there to sneeze as it went up his keen nostrils.

A grimace caught his mouth, no matter how much he tried to be positive, just as they all wanted to after losing their partners.

He had promised, after all, that he would see the voracious dinosaur again, whatever it took. Only, reality rather put a bummer on such noble ideas, grounding him firmly without any way of fulfilling something which he never wanted to break. According to Henry (via his father, Janyuu), Hypnos, under fire in spite of their success against the D-Reaper, was in no mood to start testing their luck and the patience of the populace and government with any sort of attempt to reach the Digital World again. His previous checks to find a portal had come up naught – was the barrier repaired?

Was there ever going to be a way back there? There had been no bioemergences or anything, and Hypnos had also made much of the 'healed' barrier. The Digital World seemed like how it sounded now – a whole different universe, completely distinct from theirs. A previous chapter of his life was simply that.

But what could he do next? What could any of them do next? After such…greatness, what could possibly compare? Despite all his attempts to ensure they remembered and kept together, everything had returned to how it was. His friends were even far too grounded with homework and catching-up to organise any sort of serious reunion. Ryo was too far away. Rika, whilst in a different school, was barely heard from, at least until this fateful email. He had been able to keep in touch with Henry since they went to the same school, albeit not the same class, but for Suzie the most contact he got was still being called the "angwy kid" when she picked up the phone for her brother, and with Ai and Mako he found himself, once it had all subsided, barely knowing them. They were too young, too distant, and now had no common link with the loss of their partner to the unknown.

As for those in his class, naturally he saw them pretty regularly – with Kazu and Kenta they had met up for donkey's years and doubtless still would for ages yet, but their meetings were normally more about playing cards, repeating the same subjects of conversation over and over again about teachers, homework and television, and on rare occasions getting homework done. It had only been a few weeks, yes, but Takato could sense a pattern developing. They weren't about to change much yet, and neither was his luck at that very same card game.

Truly, the only real indication that anything had changed at all was Jeri. Takato had watched her for so long and paid attention to a lot about her – after all, that was what any infatuated kid did. But even that was unnecessary to notice the differences in her, initially quite visible once she had returned to school after a week, but subsiding since. Were they fading? Or were they gone? In spite of the surprise at being asked for an answer, the quiet in class and the somewhat monotonous movement and actions fading somewhat, there still remained a lack of happiness. Gone was that cheery smile when she spoke to him, at least one not clearly forced. At least she tried with him – aside from her closer friends, both from their group of Tamers and from her group of girls like Ayaka and Miki, she didn't seem to have the heart to even attempt such.

She had deep issues from it – Takato knew that even before she had returned. It had first crossed his mind during a pause in the D-Reaper battle, when Hypnos was busy working and thus leaving them to wander aimlessly about the hotel, that, even if they did save her, she wouldn't be able to forget this sort of thing. The problem was he never had an opening to talk about it with her – any "how are you" and "are you okay now" questions were met with even more forced smiles and a complete denial of her previous sulking. She was seeing a psychiatrist, yes, but Takato didn't know enough about what was going on with her to tell if it had any influence at all on her.

For so long he had subtly tried to learn about her in the hopes that he could one day strike up a proper conversation, friendship, and perhaps more. Only, now he found himself trying to find out so much about the Holy Grail: her inner thoughts, those which would always elude. After all, if he knew them, he would know how she felt about…him.

She had to know, right? She had known him for so…

Takato took a deep breath, sighing. The paths he was beginning to tread with his thoughts were trenches by now, pressed so hard so many times before that he no longer knew what was real and what was his optimistic imagination. And so, he added to his list yet another person he needed to talk to as soon as possible, and doubtless how things went with Rika would influence that.

Oddly, he found himself unable to decide which he expected to be worse: talking to Rika, or talking to Jeri.

Chewing his lip, he reached the top step, gazing down into the hideout and gently pushing the bars back a bit. It was remarkable this place was still so intact, given it had once been beneath the spread of a huge deletion program gone-awry. Indeed, he had actually been there during it all, when he had seen Jeri and…

He stopped mid-thought, deciding he didn't want to go down that road again, through all those memories. God only knew how much worse it was for the girl herself.

And yet, wherever he went, he was confronted with memories. The sight of Guilmon digging the very hole in front of him was clear as day in his mind, as were his explanations about why he buried food there (only to dig it up later and eat it). The saurian had his own logic and his own way of doing things, and there was a certain charm and simplicity to it all that Takato couldn't deny was an attractive world view. None of the worries that he constantly had, and none of the barriers and rules of society and relationships.

It was at this moment that he realised that something seemed…off. Very off, and yet, it dwelled just beyond his reach, tugging at his mind but not seeming real.

"Did someone just turn a TV on?" he wondered, taking brief glances to the walls and ceiling of the building before his sight landed firmly on the pit below, a gentle light sparkling within. Not bright enough to be visible during the height of the day, but definitely visible right now.

An eyebrow rose, and he sank to his knees, placing a hand on the edge of the hole for stability. The dirt wasn't exactly the most ideal of supports, however, and a sprinkling of it tumbled away below, flowing with larger parts along the curved side and rolling away out of sight.

A quick series of flashes burst below, over the normal twinkling, before subsiding once again.

"That was weird," he mused, yet the sight and light seemed oddly…familiar.

Reaching out, he carefully lowered himself into the hole, being careful not to disturb its edges any more. They had been lucky that Guilmon's tunnelling was strong enough the first time they had used it – if not, they would've been trapped underground, or at least wouldn't have reached the…

"Portal?"

Eyes blinked as they took in the light cast over them and the boy's face, as his mind glazed over the feeling of pressing his palms into the rough dirt. Even the fact his pants were now dirtied at the knees by it was ignored, in spite of the mocking it would inevitably prompt from Rika later, and, of course, the scolding from his mother who would have to wash them afterwards.

All of it paled in comparison to the glorious sight before him.

Speckles of data orbited the white and yellow orb like planets around a fiery star, whilst at its core lay a grid of pink squares and lines. Its composition was not of this world and with good reason too. This bizarre object was a gateway to another world. The Digital World.

And it was the way back to Guilmon.

Clenched fists and a sharp "yes!" of cheering almost weighed out the pain of hitting his head on the roof of the tunnel as he leapt up.

Groaning as he rubbed his sore cranium, he found himself unable to be downed by it for long, the portal in front of him meaning so much for him right now. It would break the monotony in his life, it would bring them all back together as Tamers, and, most importantly, it would allow him to keep his promise to his partner.

Homework and diary already forgotten, the irony of his next words failed to hit him.

"I need to call Rika and the others."

**TO BE CONTINUED…**

* * *

**A/N:** Yeah, I know this has been spread over rather more chapters than the original, but there was definitely good cause for it in maintaining a good flow for the story. There'll be more action soon, I assure you, and the next chapter will reintroduce two more characters.

As for the Jurato business, I can't help this time round but be fairer in the whole RikaTakatoJeri triangle, which should make this rewrite a lot more realistic and interesting on that front, as per a fair few other good fanfics on here. Particularly since I now understand the characters a lot better, and how to write them in such a situation.

Oh, and I'll be away from this Sunday until September, so there won't be any updates until then. Apologies for the inconvenience.

Until next time…

B.C.


	4. The Call

**DISCLAIMER: I don't own Digimon, but I do own the original characters introduced in this story and my other stories (except where stated otherwise here or elsewhere by myself).**

**A/N: **Thanks to Crazyeight for beta reading.

* * *

**DIMENSIONS**

**_BOOK ONE_ **

_Links_

**Rewrite**

By Blazing Chaos

* * *

**CHAPTER FOUR**

_The Call_

* * *

**WEDNESDAY, 14TH NOVEMBER 2007**

* * *

**_Nonaka Residence, Shinjuku Ward_**

**_17:33 JST_**

The sleek form of the laptop both greatly contrasted and complimented the slow-slung table in a room, which, to a Westerner's eyes at least, seemed extremely sparse. Even the bed, an almost-flat futon with only a pillow rising above the floor, was stowed away in cupboards lining a wall. Beams of timber swung across the ceiling from alcove to alcove, while a solid sliding door shone with the dull evening's light through its papery windows. A lone lamp drooped down from above, the alternative illumination for when even the airy room became too dark.

Unfortunately, even in the most ornate and traditional of settings, there was no getting away from the aggravations of computing, and, of course, the attached aggravations of the large fleshy beings using them.

"Where is it?!"

This particular being ran a hand across her forehead and into her reddish hair, groaning in annoyance as she slammed down the palm of her hand on the top of the screen. Naturally, it didn't help solve the problem, and, indeed, undoubtedly would cause other problems down the line once a short lifetime of wear and tear had had an effect, but it proved to vent her irritations.

Of all the files. Of all the files in the whole computer, it had had to be that one.

Had her grandmother been using her laptop? Maybe she'd inadvertently stumbled across the folder. Maybe she were simply too curious? That didn't sound like something the older woman would've done at all, not least because of how much respect and trust she paid to everyone, and the fact that she had her own computer too.

It couldn't have been her mother either. The woman had left so early in the morning that the only evidence of her presence was the bowl dumped in the sink, and her late arrival the previous night meant that the chances she had even had the energy to find and use the computer were very slim.

Besides, if the model had found it, she would already have teased her daughter endlessly about it, or at least made a comment to Seiko from where she thought she was beyond Rika's earshot.

She groaned as she scrolled through the folder again, one labelled innocuously as **Digimon Cards**. The name was, of course, completely nonsensical, even if its name were true to what it held, but she knew it was exactly the sort of thing that her mother and grandmother would've had absolutely no interest in were they to stumble across it.

Still, its mere existence, and the fact that two dozen or so documents populated it, still beggared the girl's belief. What had compelled her to start it? Was she trying to make something like this happen? Was it just plain insanity?

Pressing her lips together, she knew the real reason. Jeri.

It had been the first (and only) time they had really met up as any proper group since the D-Reaper, several days after. Even that wasn't complete – Ryo, Ai, Mako and Kenta had all been forced to be absent by distance and other circumstances. Of course, she had been well aware that Takato, Henry, Kazu and Kenta had been in close contact anyway through school, reopening a day or two before, but it had been somewhat nice to see everyone again.

Not least the brunette, once renowned for wearing a rather dog-eared and somewhat creepy yellow sock puppet, something which seemed well beyond her age. She seemed to agree, of course – when she and the redhead had gone aside to talk (whilst their friends engaged in a bizarre game involving balls of paper and a shopping trolley which Jeri herself was somehow completely unfazed by), she learnt that it now had a new owner, her stepbrother. Jeri had remarked on it being nicer to hear her brother's innocent voice from it rather than the haunting memories of her own possessed and depressed voice.

She had sounded almost cheery and looked it too with her forced smile, but Rika found it blatantly obvious that she was embarrassed when it came to talking about her first couple of sessions with the psychiatrist.

* * *

"She told me to write down all my feelings before a meeting and then again afterwards…but I never know what to write. I…I don't feel right saying those things to a complete stranger."

"Yeah, I wouldn't either."

"I don't think she even understood what I went through."

"Yeah…I used to talk to Renamon about everything. I mean…sorry."

"Don't worry Rika. Takato already said things like that on the phone a thousand times."

Jeri's giggle was familiar, yet it seemed…unusual now. Like, it didn't really fit with what had happened.

"Sounds about right," Rika had murmured in response, sighing as she took a look over at the boy, presently stuck in an overturned trolley. Rolling eyes at the sight with but a slim smile of amusement on her face, she looked back to her friend. "Have you spoken to him…much?"

"He's called me a lot – he's really worried."

"Yeah." Rika had recalled how he had been jumping at the bit to talk to the brunette when she had arrived at the hideout, their inevitable meeting place.

Through that fairly loud conversation, she had learnt that Jeri was both seeing a psychiatrist and hadn't gone back to school yet like the others. It seemed odd that after being together as a group for so long they had ended up barely talking for the first few days after the end of the battle, but there had been so much to clean up. "What do you tell him?"

"I tell him I'm okay and seeing a psychiatrist."

"That's it?"

Jeri took a breath, sighing. "Yeah. I thought about telling him more, but it'd only worry him more, and he already looks like he expects me to explode every time I see him."

"Yeah, definitely Takato. But…he's the most touchy-feely person I know…and you two are really close friends. Jeri, if you're not going to talk to him or to a complete stranger, who are you going to talk to?"

"Well…I thought about talking to myself."

"Huh?"

"Not…like…the puppet again, but putting it all down on paper like the psychiatrist says. Maybe if I do grow to trust her, I can show her it."

"So…a diary?"

"Yeah. I have so many things that I want to talk about but they would make everyone either think I was crazy or worry about me even more. I don't want that."

* * *

That was where the idea had come from it seemed. The words had somehow struck a chord with the fiery redhead – perhaps she was in the exact same position as her friend, keeping everything bottled up but knowing she couldn't talk to anyone. Hell, of course she was – her classmates hated her, her fellow Tamers seemed too close and too difficult to explain things to, and her mother and grandmother wouldn't understand. And so, she had made a diary.

Whether Jeri herself had actually started one too, she didn't know – they had barely talked. Rika had found herself increasingly wrapped up in her snooty private school again as catch-up work hit hard. The combination of Rumiko's want for her daughter to succeed and vindicate her as a mother (which Rika couldn't help but feel was her missing the point somewhat) and the fact she had little reason to head the way to the park or towards Takato's district hadn't helped.

As a result, she found herself spending so much of her time simply looping back the old memories of her friends and of the Goggleheaded boy himself over and over again in her head, never really mustering up the courage to simply call any of them to chat or meet up. The concept seemed odd anyhow – she was so used to simply bumping into them at a bioemergence site or whilst strolling through the park that scheduling anything seemed pointless. Besides, they had their own busy lives to lead too, particularly given the somewhat exaggerated amounts of homework they always insisted they had.

Takato, in fact, had been the only one to call, but unfortunately, his luck had been such that he had called on the only evening which her mother was home in a whole week, and on which her grandmother had 'suggested' she stay put. She knew it was for the better, but her mind couldn't help but wander to him.

Once again, he was invading her life randomly. She couldn't help but forget the first time he had shown up around her neighbourhood, far sooner than even an actual friend would normally come to one's house. Of course, it was just an accident in reality – just another of his Goggleheaded moments. She seemed to have had a moment too, in fact, inviting him over to talk for a reason she still couldn't quite comprehend, the first time she had had a friend over. The teasing from her grandmother and mother later (far more from the latter than the former, at least once she had been told about it by her mother) had convinced her to make it the last too.

She massaged her brow with her fingers, not oblivious to the irony of their comments in retrospect.

Still, in spite of all that, it would've been nice if he had come up to her house in the past week or so once again randomly. He could have fallen over his own feet a few times and alleviated the boredom in a snap. There wasn't any other reason.

That was what she had told herself until the day before, at least. But, after her splurging out of her feelings onto paper, albeit digital, she found herself with no reason to deny it any more. She liked Takato, in more than a friend kind of way.

She hated that. It was so much more difficult to laugh at someone tripping if you personally wanted them to pick themselves up at the end of it.

And yet, whilst opening one valve and releasing the pressure on her mind, she had inadvertently closed another – the nagging doubt had spread in her mind that writing it all down had been a mistake. It was no longer speculative thoughts in her mind; it had become real, concrete, tangible. She was admitting it to herself, and she knew she didn't want to do that. In fact, after a long day of tiresome school and a bored evening of worrisome thinking about it, she had finally decided to delete it, and pretend it had never existed.

The benefit of doing it on a computer was meant to be that deleting it would've left no remainder, once the bin had been recycled, of course. Apparently though, the computer had other plans.

It was that virus they were talking about, no doubt about it. The bored times at home (aside from her mother's annoyingly persistent suggestions for shopping trips) and the darkening winters had given her plenty of time with the computer and the television, and had in turn meant she had learnt a fair bit about the news and the world as a result. Not that she didn't know before, of course – she was an above average pupil, even if that was about the only thing her lacklustre pupil report said beyond the normal concerns about withdrawn and antisocial behaviour. The difference now was that she had been paying a bit more attention, and so she could tell that this case showed every sign that it was the virus.

A spreadsheet file sat on her desktop, staring back at her and mocking her. She wanted to think that it was just a one-way thing – she'd ended up with a random spreadsheet from some shop or business in god-only-knew where, no biggie. They could just remake it, after all. They hadn't really done much on it either, not least since it lacked any real identifying details beyond numbers.

Her mind, however, told her differently, expecting the worst and never bothering to hope for the best. Either the owner of this spreadsheet, promptly dragged to the bin, had her diary entry, or some random other person did.

Letting out a deep sigh, she closed the lid of the computer, trying to think on the bright side for once. The chances that anyone she knew – hell, the chances that anyone in the city had it, were slim, and even less so that they knew what it was. Sure, their names were becoming better known, but out of context it could've gone under the radar until it was too late. Whilst she was somewhat concerned someone would see the Digimon reference and pass it on to the media, she doubted that they cared enough about such trivial matters of relative nobodies to publish it. Or, indeed, that Hypnos would even let them do so.

So she had got her wish. The file was gone – maybe it was even destiny for it to go? It was the world telling her to get over things – simple. And she would gladly oblige.

A ringing echoed through the house, no move made to reach a phone that the girl knew was far out of the room. Only her cell phone was there, and it was off, saving power. She barely used it, after all, and endlessly plugging it in would've quickly become tiresome.

The ringing stopped followed by a sigh of relief. Her grandmother, the only other being in the house, had evidently answered it. It felt weird to think that though – she was so used to the omnipresent Renamon over her shoulder that the concept of it truly being just her and the older woman alone in the house had become so bizarre.

"Rika," she heard her grandmother's voice echo along the hallway, before a shadow appeared behind the papery door wall. It slid back, revealing a phone handset held out by a neatly dressed woman in her forties or fifties. Seiko Hata was rather young for a grandmother, but her family had had a certain history with becoming mothers at a young age. Regardless of her real age, the look of wisdom in her eyes conveyed the depth of her experience and calm cautiousness at life, coupled with her warm smile, plain to see as Rika stood up and wandered over to the doorway in which she now stood. "It's Takato."

She had to hold herself back from letting loose a groan. Did the entire world have a grudge against her? Two seconds earlier she had been on her way to getting over things, but now, knowing that he was listening in (and, indeed, confusedly asking "hello?" through the speaker of the phone) left her back at square one again, the worst place to be.

Crushes were meant to be for morons, and, well, Gogglehead. Not her.

Grimacing as she picked up her phone translated into an annoying tone of voice, a silent 'thanks' mouthed to her grandmother before she quickly slipped away again. Turning back, Rika paced back to the centre of the room, handset pressed on her ear.

"Yo."

**"Hey, Rika! It's Takato! I tried to call your cell, but you didn't answer."**

"I never have it on." Rika got the feeling that her tone didn't quite match up with his, enthusiastic to the point of actually sounding frightened. What on earth had happened? This couldn't just be him asking her to visit his neck of the woods or vice versa – even he couldn't over blow such a thing _that_ much.

"Oh…okay. Been busy?"

**"Sorry – no time to chat."**

"Did you just…blow me off?" Rika huffed incredulously – this was the first time she could recall Takato ever being this rude. Idiotic, maybe, but impolite, very rarely. Rika didn't care too much for manners, but calling someone and then almost immediately telling them to shut up was a bit of a joke.

**"Sorry – I'm on a pay phone."**

"A pay phone? What? Why?" This was getting weirder by the minute – couldn't whatever he was asking about wait for him to go home first?

**"TO CONTINUE, PLEASE INSERT AT LEAST 50 YEN."**

"Gogglehead?"

A clunk sounded down the line, Rika sighing. This was typical Gogglehead – he wasn't going to get much time at all with that sort of change.

**"Sorry about that."**

"Stop apologising and get to the point already." Rika found her tone wasn't actually all that mad, but she anticipated she would be if this continued. Hearing the audible gulp and nervous laugh down the line, she rolled her eyes.

**"Oh, okay. I've discovered something really good."**

"That no-one has ever worn goggles who isn't an idiot or a swimmer?" And yet, Rika somehow found herself disliking the idea of him getting rid of them. They were so omnipresent and only on occasions had she seen him without them, and then he had looked somewhat…off.

**"Oh ha ha."**

Rika found him entirely unconvincing with his sarcasm, getting the sense that above it all he was both nervous and bounding with enthusiasm at the same time. Just what had he discovered?

**"It's back."**

"What's back? Do you have to be so cryptic? We're not in a TV show." For someone who was already on a timer for how long he could talk, Takato was pushing his luck.

**"I mean…the portal to the Digital World is back."**

Rika went to reply with a pre-prepared response, but froze when the news hit her, her brow pushed high by her quickly widened eyes whilst her mouth hung open, only recovering enough eventually to ask "what?"

The portal? He had to be joking. Then again, this was the sort of thing about which Takato could never joke, the sort of thing he would always be deadly serious about.

**"Yeah…I found it just now."**

Rika pressed her lips together again, steadying her composure and trying to put some sense to things. This couldn't be true, could it? First Takato called her right after thinking about it all, and now he was giving her the news she had yearned for constantly through those seemingly-endless weeks, as the clock and calendar had both slowed to but a stop. If this was really true, then it meant both that she had a way back to Renamon, and that someone on high – God, destiny, fate, whoever – had to be screwing with her, turning her into their toy for their personal amusement. The former was the most tantalising prospect – she would have not only her partner back, but her protector, her confident, her companion…her friend.

A faint smile broke free from the thin line that had been her mouth.

**"TO CONTINUE, PLEASE INSERT AT LEAST 50 YEN."**

"Gogglehead, stick in more than 50 yen for once!"

**"I'm all out of change – can you call Henry and meet me at the park so we can…?"**

"Takato? Takato?"

Rika pulled the handset from the side of her ear as she heard it click in disconnection, groaning as she stared down at the now-idle screen.

"Stupid Gogglehead."

**TO BE CONTINUED…**

* * *

Quite odd really – I expected the first chapter of the original to be rewritten into two or three chapters, but I've realised in retrospect just how much I squeezed into it and how much needed elaborating to set up the story well, and so it looks that it'll be five or four and a bit as a result. I plan to have less rewrite chapters compared to original chapters in the future, naturally, since pace matters too, but for now I like how these bite-sized chapters are working out. This chapter in particular in the original was but a scene of dialogue with no description, and while the rewrite added a lot more and moved the setting to Rika's point of view, it was still very little. Hence, I'm pretty proud of this new one now, and the introduction of Rika into the story, along with a lot more elaboration around Jeri and a nice little idea regarding where Rika got the idea for the diary from.

Until next time…

B.C.


	5. The Reunion

**DISCLAIMER: I don't own Digimon, but I do own the original characters introduced in this story and my other stories (except where stated otherwise here or elsewhere by myself).**

**A/N: **Thanks to Crazyeight for beta reading.

* * *

**DIMENSIONS**

_**BOOK ONE**_

_Links_

**Rewrite**

By Blazing Chaos

* * *

**CHAPTER FIVE**

_The Reunion_

* * *

**WEDNESDAY, 14****TH**** NOVEMBER 2007**

* * *

_**Shinjuku Park**__**, Shinjuku Ward**_

_**18:01 JST**_

The surface of the hideout felt rather cool beneath Takato's hands where he leant on both them and the wall, whilst being careful to avoid the piles of mud and dirt which would invariably have left his mother extremely cross with him. If he wanted to go back to the Digital World, he needed to be on her good side. Of course, he also knew that to get there he needed to be at home right now doing his homework, but he had a date with Rika and Henry.

Or just a date with Rika, if she hadn't heard his request in time.

He mentally backtracked, quickly rewording his thoughts from 'date' to 'meeting' for fear that he would be beaten up by…what? His mental concept of Rika? Right now, however, that particular element of his mind, one that existed even before he met her in person, was in a state of flux, torn between what he thought he knew of her and the reams of confusion and complication the diary entry had opened up.

Regardless, whatever she was like, it was going to be interesting – just like the old days, the old trio; working together to solve a problem. They could go get their Digimon back, and finally relieve the endless boredom and mundane lifestyle that they had snapped back into after the departure of the unusual creatures.

Before, things had been so interesting, from the deathly dangers of battles to the silly moments of always beating Guilmon at 'rock, paper, scissors' by simply always using 'rock'. As their group grew, it became more interesting. Some of their best days had been in the lead up to their ill-fated Digital World trip. That was back when Kazu, Kenta and Jeri had become more interested in their group. Back when Rika had set aside her antisocial ways (mostly) and joined their group (even helping her fellow female Tamer learn the card game). Back when Jeri was eagerly wanting Leomon to be her partner.

Gazing down at the floor, he sighed, finding himself unable to think of the proud lion without images of his violent and tearful death swarming to his mind, a death at the hands of someone who had later become a dear friend. He had forgiven Impmon, but it didn't change things. Leomon was dead – Jeri wasn't about to get the same happiness that they would.

Maybe that was why he hadn't asked Rika to call her too. He had only said Henry, in fact, even thought there were plenty of them with Digimon partners. Why had he done that?

Perhaps he simply didn't want to get their hopes up. After all, he knew he had made plenty of dumb mistakes in the past, and, as much as she would jibe him for it, Takato knew he would prefer Rika to be the one to point them out before he shattered someone's dreams right in front of them. As for Jeri…he simply didn't want to hurt her feelings any more by involving her. At least, not before they knew what was really going on.

Part of him wanted to believe that was the sole motivation, but as the words of the diary flashed across his mind he knew it was more than simply that.

* * *

**I have fun around him, except when he's obsessing over what's obviously going on with him and Jeri. Even the dumb-dumb twins must know that's going on – it's so cringe worthy, I hate it. She always gets attention from him without having to insult him or call him names. I hate that. So much more than I want to.**

* * *

This was just fantastic, of course. His mind was now telling him that he couldn't invite Jeri and Rika together because the latter would be irritated…but…he liked Jeri. He wanted to talk to her, but he also liked Rika. How could he only have one of them there? Did he have to? Rika had never mentioned her annoyance before, and she wouldn't be expecting him to know – not until he told her about his knowledge of the entry, of course. But then again, anything that would push Rika more into herself was a mistake, and she had made far too much progress for him to force her to give it up now.

Letting out a sigh, he mused about the idiocy of clicking random files on his desktop. So much for computer viruses and crashing – this infection was far more sinister. It was one of the mind, one which searched for every little doubt and dragged it out.

If Jeri liked him, wouldn't she have replied when…?

No. That wasn't the real Jeri. That was a clone, the product of the D-Reaper. Today's Jeri seemed like a poor copy too, lacking that optimism and smile, at least, that real optimism and smile. Would it ever return, or was this 'new' Jeri destined to be permanently blighted?

Did he still like her, even now?

He wanted to. He wanted to pull that 'old Jeri' out of her, to clutch every moment she seemed back to her old self, even if they always seemed to be straws. He still liked her, he still loved her, but this wasn't her. Right?

She'd come around. Eventually, she'd come around. Right?

Did she like him? After all that had happened, were they closer…or further from each other?

The moment hung in his mind, the moment he let his emotions overrun him to the point where he was ready to slaughter Beelzemon, no, Impmon, there and then for his crimes. The point where Gallantmon, defender of justice, became judge, jury and executioner. And the moment where Jeri had called for no more.

No more death.

No more beasts.

No more…anger.

Rika had commented during the subsequent D-Reaper battle, in one of those rare moments that they had time to look back, that he didn't seem at all like him when that angry. She hadn't got so far as admitting her fear, but the unspoken words prevailed.

That dreadful day, a day never to be forgotten, had left wounds on them all. It wasn't just Jeri who had changed from their adventure: they all had, if only slightly.

Takato groaned and leaned back on the wall, closing his eyes in contemplation as he pushed down the images, only to remember why he was here in the first place. Why he was here as twilight dawned, as most settled for wandering home to unwind after a long day of work. The Digimon.

The end of the D-Reaper incident could've brought about peace and happiness back to all of them, but the loss of their Digimon had thrown the group into disarray. Despite best intentions, since the D-Reaper attack and the loss of their partners, they had all drifted apart. Were the Digimon the only thing keeping them together?

To be fair, they weren't _that_ far apart. He saw Kazu, Kenta, Henry and Jeri pretty much daily, either in class or wandering around the school yard. It was strange how much they blended in now with the rest of the students – without their Digimon, they were pushed down a peg, without their Digimon, they were…dare it be said…'ordinary'.

The games in the dinosaur resumed quickly: it was a nice way to remember the Digimon and their adventures without the sour taste of over-reminiscing, even if it did result in a lot of bragging from Kazu, who, like Kenta, had seemed to go back to normal. Maybe it had affected them underneath, maybe not. Neither had been a Tamer for nearly as long, and neither had to face the original challenges such as keeping one's partner hidden from parents, teachers and the city, facing off with Hypnos and its then-sinister boss Yamaki, and, of course, the skirmishes with the Devas. Kazu had a bit longer, but Kenta and Suzie had little chance to get to know MarineAngemon and Lopmon. They had savoured every second though, of course.

Rika and Ryo were rather less seen. Ryo hadn't even been able to turn up for their reunion, such was the distance from Kyushu and the difficulty when one lacked a partner. Rika had been there, and Takato had been grateful for being able to see her again, but she had spent much of the time talking to Jeri. At the time, Takato had dismissed it as 'girl-talk', but in light of his new discovery (and his own curiosity about Jeri's feelings), he wished he had eavesdropped, if only a little.

Ai and Mako had missed that day too. They barely knew them, of course, and the kids wouldn't be allowed out of the house for such a distance without their parents so there was no chance of that. Even they had formed a tight bond with Impmon, the Digimon who beforehand had run away from them as fast as he could.

During the meet-up, none had asked that inevitable question: what next?

What could you possibly do in life that would even begin to rival the past few months? Nothing, in Takato's eyes at least.

Evidently though, Henry (or his parents) disagreed. The boy had pushed into his studies as much as he could, trying to catch up with everything he had missed, and then some. He wouldn't even come out of the house at times, while a call to his home, if answered by his father at least, yielded a sighed "he's busy with his homework", the man's tone saddened. Henry didn't say much about what was going on, but had said that he had told his father he forgave him. Even so, the wound was far from healed – Terriermon, one of their family, was gone.

Henry was by far the most likely of the group to get into the top universities, the top jobs, and, to be fair, to do the best in the difficult outside world that lay beyond school. This was, of course, something that the rest of them hadn't even begun to contemplate; they were thirteen, they were in school, they were still kids, why even begin to contemplate such a thing? But, Henry probably wasn't doing as such, in fact, if anything, Henry was thinking in the present. He had become their intermediate with Hypnos, via his father, but the news was far from reassuring. Hypnos was under investigation still, even if it wasn't officially possible for it to be subject to such.

Still, in all likelihood, Henry would one day rival his father in programming prowess. That was why the boy had said he had concentrated on his studies so much over the past few weeks, in the hope that he could become knowledgeable enough to get their partners back one day. This newfound discovery could easily take that load off the boy's mind, and perhaps allow that bond with his father to be repaired. Or, it could turn out to not work at all, and just make things worse.

Takato couldn't really compare, the extent of his father's ability to take their Digimon away extended only to poisoned bread, and his own ability to open a portal to the Digital World was even less.

"_But doing schoolwork to avoid him? I thought Henry was the most level-headed of all of us, but even I can say that's nuts."_

Then again, who was he to talk about avoiding? Clutching the pen drive within his pocket, he frowned. Would now be the time to tell her? Or could it wait until after they got the Digimon back? If they got the Digimon back, that was.

"_I just have to try and not act weird around her."_

Scratch that.

"_I have to act weird around her." _Like normal, that was.

Was it just around her he acted weird? Or was it…?

A sharp snap clapped around the concrete, as something hit him in the front of the head, not from far enough to hurt considerably but enough to at least surprise.

He went to judder forward, one hand rubbing where his Goggles had snapped against his forehead. Catching him even more off guard, a pair of hands moved from the sides of his head to grab his shoulders and pulled him back the other way, displaying his complete lack of physical strength.

"Sorry, couldn't resist." The upside-down face, at least from Takato's viewpoint, let out a small smile in amusement.

"H-how did you creep up on me like that?" She let go of his sides, allowing him to sit up again and spin round to face her, as she raised a finger to lecture him.

"You were off in dreamland again and you're dealing with the partner of a Renamon – what'd you expect?"

"Oh, right." Takato's frown echoed Rika's at the name of her lost partner. Even with the sliver of potential they could recover them, it had become instinct to treat it like a name of the dead, with all of the memories it entailed. "How are you? I haven't seen you since the reunion. Anything happen in your life?" Takato found his voice sounding more nervous than usual, as he tried to push the diary entry from his mind.

"It's been three weeks. Do you think I've gone to Mars or something?"

Takato laughed sheepishly. "It could happen."

"Does the explanation involve the words "it happened on the TV show"?"

"Yes."

Rika, rolling her eyes, took that as a cue to change the subject. "So, I presume the portal is in the hole?"

Takato took rather longer to realise. "Uh…ah, yeah, yeah, where else would it be? Just plain old portal, in the hole." He mentally cringed at his chuckling. There was normal 'weird', and then there was lying 'weird'. "I found it when running through here earlier on the way…yeah." Takato stopped himself when he realised he was saying too much.

Rika raised an eyebrow, but said nothing. "I…see." To anyone else this would be unusual, but this was Takato, a boy whose entire career as a Tamer was built upon being the only person on Earth stupid enough to come up with an inane idea and then follow through with it. Unusual was usual.

She clambered forth to the edge of the pit, peering in and down. Takato watched, seeing the same old clothes that had become her trademark. She hadn't changed; still the same old hair band, still the same old style, still the same old bottom…

He shook his head briskly as he glanced away from the sight of Rika vanishing into the pit. What would a normal person do in this situation? Would they have really let it hang like this, or would they have just got it over and done with? It felt like torture to know what was going through her mind when she hadn't a clue he did.

At least, he thought he did. Maybe it was all a big mistake. She hadn't acted strangely…had she?

Rubbing a hand against his sore forehead, Takato let out a quiet groan. Nothing was ever simple, was it?

"It's really there!" Rika sounded astounded, her eyes wide in amazement as she peeked up out of the hole again, peering over at him. She cocked an eyebrow at his pose. "Headache?"

"Uh…nothing. And yeah, it's back! Isn't this fantastic?! I can't wait to get our Digimon back!"

Rika couldn't help but notice something wrong with the way he was talking. There was enthusiasm, and then there was this, the sort of enthusiasm an older DJ would put on when playing the newest records. This wasn't part of the usual 'Takatoness': the boy always showed genuine enthusiasm. Probably too much for his own good, in fact.

It barely mattered though – this meant so much more to her. They had the portal back! The portal back to the Digital World, to Renamon, to happiness!

Her hand unconsciously moved to the D-Arc at her belt, remembering how useless it had become once their partners had left. It would only be a matter of time now, wouldn't it? With this portal, nothing could stand in their way. "Yeah…"

"Hey, did you call Henry?"

She nodded. "Yeah, he said he'd be along as soon as he could."

"Great!"

Rika sat up against the wall of the hideout, alongside the goggled teen and with a grimace on her face. "I wish he'd come sooner though. I want to get moving already."

"Wait, you want to go straight away?"

She nodded, a bewildered look making it clear to the boy she saw no oddities in her words. "We don't know how long the portal will last; if we wait and ask we could lose our only chance."

"Yeah…I guess that's right."

"You don't agree with me, do you?" Her tone was somewhat judgemental, as Takato began to err and ah a response.

"Err…well, it's not that I don't, but…I told my parents I'd be back for dinner, and if I vanish again…my mom will kill me."

"Grow a backbone Takato – we survived the first time intact. Sure, it was dangerous and I'll be honest and say I so scared every time things started to go wrong that I didn't say a proper goodbye to my mom, but it's what we had to do."

"But…we don't have any Digimon."

"What and we're going to get one by just sitting around waiting for our parents or whoever to give the thumbs up?"

Takato frowned, shuffling uncomfortably. He was in an argument, but he was only hearing one side, and all his attempts to dissuade the girl failed miserably. He had to admit that a part of him wanted to dive in there right now, maybe even in the middle of conversation, because every moment gone could be the portal's last. Yet…perhaps those few weeks had dampened his adventurous streak. They certainly hadn't highlighted the boons of not thinking things through properly.

Rika picked up on his pause, replying with her own frown. "You really don't agree, do you?" She asked as if he was treating her like a mad woman.

"It's not that, it's just…"

"Hey!"

Eyes flicked up to a newcomer, blue hair black under the dampening light. A chill upon the air made him press in his orange vest, yet barely affected his smile upon seeing them.

"Henry!" Takato exclaimed, pleased to see his friend again even though he'd only seen him earlier that day. After seeing their friends almost constantly a few weeks back, even an hour or two away seemed like a decade.

Rika nodded to the Chinese Tamer, before glancing to one side to the goggled teen. She felt slightly perturbed about not getting an answer from him before. _"Still…I bet Takato's going to say something dumb like 'the old team's back together'."_

"The old team's back together again!"

"_Close enough."_

"Takato, I spent the whole way here wondering if I'd heard Rika wrong in her five second call, so…is it really true?" Henry sounded somewhat sceptical, as he gestured towards the pit in the hideout, coming to a stand in front of them. Takato enthusiastically pushed himself up to his feet. Rika followed shortly after, pondering how Henry could really say that he didn't trust her words. Her call wasn't that rushed. Plenty of people could understand information in five seconds, not least a 'genius' like Henry.

"Yeah."

"Wasn't the strobe lighting a clue at all for our resident brain box?" Rika jibed, gesturing down into the pit with a smile on her face nonetheless. Henry looked down, blinking, before getting on his hands and knees to peer inside.

When he returned, a compliment of widened eyes had been added to his face. "It's really real."

"Yeah – for once Gogglehead's brain isn't being choked."

Takato glanced to Rika's face, a smile on it despite her comments. She could be so hard to read; maybe that was why he hadn't a clue until he discovered that email. From just looking, he wouldn't have known that she had any such feelings, although he also knew he wasn't known for paying close attention. Then again, maybe he was just being mistaken? If he raised it, would it simply give her more reason to mock him? In spite of his mind saying there was little other explanation than the diary entry being genuine, he still had a nagging doubt.

Kazu had once joked that people were mean to people they liked. He, of course, had gone purple when Kenta had inferred that to mean that he liked Ayaka and vice versa, an exception explained away effectively by the simple words of "that's different." Then again, Rika was mean to everyone: Ryo especially. Did she have feelings for him? The joke had been bandied about plenty of times thanks to their unofficial titles as Digimon Queen and King, but from the brief moments Takato had seen of the pair together, he seemed to simply rub her up the wrong way more often than not. It was strange, actually, since to Takato he seemed like a fairly nice guy even if he kept himself to himself most of the time. He certainly wasn't hard to get on with. Still, Rika was Rika.

"This changes everything."

For Henry, it felt like the cloud of the last few weeks was being lifted. For all that time, he had felt like he was a different him in a different universe, one where he had never met his wise-cracking partner. His glances repeatedly fell back to the pit, the lights still flashing within.

"So what do we do?" That was Takato, looking to him for guidance. Before he could even speak, however, Rika cut in.

"I told you: we go there now and find Renamon and the others."

Henry's eyebrow furrowed in disbelief. "Are you serious? It was hard enough to find our way back the last time; it'll be impossible if we don't tell someone on this side to look for us."

"Then call your dad or someone: they'll be forced to help if we don't give them a choice. If they don't, we'll find a way on our own."

This was typical Rika: she didn't trust anyone with any seniority to help of their own accord. Henry didn't want to risk the uneasy forgiveness with his father with such a rash move either. "We're risking too much if we rush in like this; we might not be able to get home."

"We've always rushed in before, and it's never stopped us. Takato here made a career out of doing stupid things successfully," she gestured to him briefly. "We survived last time."

Takato glanced back and forth between his friends, embroiled in what was rapidly descending into an argument. This could not be happening, could it? They were reunited, what, two minutes, and had made a fantastic discovery, and now they were arguing over it?

"Last time we had a way to contact home; what do you expect we do this time? The Ark's our only way back."

"We'll improvise then. Ryo said that he had a way home – we'll find that."

"So you're planning on us just stumbling across that route?"

Rika nodded. "Renamon can find anything; she knows a lot more about the Digital World than Terriermon or Guilmon, and she's a lot better at tracking too. She's probably already looking for it, and I want to help out."

"Are you even listening to yourself when you say things like that?" Henry's brow furrowed deeply, before receiving a low growl and glare for a response.

"At least _I'm_ making plans that have a chance of working."

"What if we don't find Ryo's way? We could be stuck out there forever."

"Alright then, make your dad and Hypnos just send the Ark to the same place. Besides, I think he owes us one after what happened…"

The last words were but a mutter, but still made Henry's eyes flame up, looking straight into Rika's legendary gaze. He was about to bite back, but his eye line faltered downwards, Rika feeling a sudden pang of guilt at her words. After all that had happened, Janyuu had been a useful scapegoat, a way to think that there was any other option, but…with the world ending, they didn't have the time to think things completely through.

Did they have time now?

"Come on guys, stop fighting!" Takato objected, firmly putting his hands up to the pair of them and halting both before they could speak again. "Arguing isn't going to help."

Rika gazed into Takato's eyes, those pangs of guilt even worse once she saw that he was against her on this too. Damn it, why did she have to say that? Henry had been kicking himself enough back at their previous reunion – he didn't need her to reaffirm it.

"Sorry…" she mumbled to the blue-haired teen. "Look…I'm just worried, you know? We have no idea how long this portal will last. It could last a week, or it could vanish in a few minute's time. I don't want to lose what could be our only chance to get Renamon and the others back."

"I want to find Terriermon too, but he wouldn't want me to die trying to get him."

"We never got this far without taking any risks." Rika's voice sounded oddly melancholic to Takato's ears. "What do you think?"

Takato blinked in surprise. Rika looked him in the eyes, her stare like normal yet her eyes probing further in, searching fro something. "Uh…" With much shrugging and uneasiness he strung a few words together. "I'll just go with whatever you want to do…both of you…"

Rika's mouth became a thin line, having hoped that Takato would be able to settle this dispute. Henry raised a palm out in mediation.

"Look…if this portal lasts a while, we can be sure it's safe."

"And if it doesn't?" Rika probed. Henry opened his mouth to speak, but was quickly interrupted by Takato.

"Then we'll take that risk." The blue-haired boy looked briefly surprised before nodding in agreement. "We scared our parents enough last time – we can't just not tell them," Takato reasoned with Rika.

"But what if they don't let us?" she retorted. There it was: the root of the issue. Even Henry nodded. After all that had happened, Takato had been surprised he hadn't been wrapped in cotton wool.

"We have to at least try," Henry suggested, cursing himself for not finding another answer. He didn't want to push or blackmail his parents into this, but he had a feeling that such measures could be the only way to convince them. "We need supplies and some kind of comms device too, or we won't get out of there alive."

"Then get your dad to call Hypnos."

"I'll try." _"Easier said than done, Rika. I don't know how I'm going to convince him, let alone everyone else."_

Takato nodded in agreement, before finally being the one to settle the two sides, casting the side of his hand down in a sweeping motion. "Right, here's the plan: if that portal is still here tomorrow, we'll go – tonight we can just tell our parents that this could be our only chance."

"What if they don't understand?" Rika asked.

"Then I don't know…we'll have to think of something…and then, we meet back here tomorrow morning…"

"So we'd be skipping school?" Henry raised an eyebrow at the prospect – something he'd never done at such short notice before, at least not on his own. With Kazu and Takato taking the lead in 'negotiations' with Mrs Asagi before, it had been rather easier for him to just sit back and see if they succeeded.

"You're complaining?" Rika raised an eyebrow in turn. "I'm not waiting for the weekend."

"Fine," Henry nodded, envisioning the prospect of getting Terriermon back far outweighing being shouted at by his teachers and parents. "What time will we go?"

Too late and they would risk being caught and dragged to school, probably by Mrs Asagi herself. Too early, and they'd be exhausted.

"Half eight? Nine?"

"Let's just settle on half eight, okay?" Rika wasn't in the mood for such an endless conversation at this hour. Her grandmother was probably already wondering what'd made her go out so randomly to meet them in the evening, although equally was probably glad she was being sociable again.

"Done."

"What about the others?" Henry asked.

Rika crossed her arms. "If you want to spend another trip babysitting them all, then fine by me – just don't expect me to help."

"They do have their own partners Rika, but…I have to admit I wouldn't want to go through what happened last time again. There were so many of us that we just kept losing people."

"Exactly – if we stick with a smaller group, we can keep together and get out of there faster."

"Wait, guys…why?" Takato asked, plans being made over his head this time. "The others are Tamers as much as we are."

"How are you going to contact them all so fast, huh?" Rika poked a finger at him in questioning. "Plus, we never said we weren't going to get their partners. It'll be a surprise."

"Rika has a point – I don't have everyone's details, and I don't see how we can talk to them and our parents too. What if one of them can't come? Do we just leave them?"

"Yeah – the more time we waste searching for everyone, the more risk there is the portal might go out."

"But…this might be the last time we ever go…we can't just leave them out."

Rika chuckled briefly and crossed her arms. "Takato, have you _seen_ our luck?"

Takato nodded, frowning and letting out the deepest of sighs. It felt so wrong to leave them all behind…but…he was well aware that if they wanted to go the next day they simply didn't have that option. Either way, he couldn't lose sight of the fact they were still going to the Digital World again. They were still going to find their Digimon. And he was still going to be reunited with Guilmon. The only thing was, not everyone would be.

The image of Jeri flashed across his mind. Not even this trip could fix that problem.

He forced back the frown and instead threw on a smile. Compared to her, he had no reason to be sad, and, in fact, as the wide grin spread across his mouth, he realised he instead had plenty of reasons to be excited.

"We're going to get the Digimon back! You guys with me?" he put out his hand determinedly, fingers outstretched and the back facing up as he glanced between his two fellow Tamers.

Rika gave him a bewildered look, before shrugging. "So long as you cut the cheesy crap, I'm in," Rika swept her palm out to land atop Takato's hand softly. Her eyes briefly flickered to his, but Takato didn't notice, his pupils already averted to Henry.

"You?"

Pausing for thought more than Rika did, he nonetheless soon threw his hand down atop Rika's as well. "I'm in too. I'll do what I can with my dad, but you two need to bring supplies and everything too."

"It'll be fine," Rika insisted.

"Right. Now that's what I call a plan!" Takato cheered, grinning even more widely to his friends. As Henry gave a warm smile at the sight of his happy friend and at the concept of being reunited with a rather more sarcastic one, Rika gently massaged her forehead with her free hand.

Same old Gogglehead.

"_Same old insane, idiotic, moronic, cute Ta…I mean…ugh…stupid Gogglehead!"_

It was at this point that Takato and Rika together noticed that Henry had already taken his hand back, leaving Rika's alone resting atop Takato's. Most curiously, her fingers were involved too, clutching around the sides gently – not enough to be a grab, but enough to be more than an accident, even if it were an unintentional move on her part.

The warm smile on Henry's face faltered at the sight, whilst Takato's went white and Rika's words jarred in her mouth.

"O-okay," she snapped her hand back in turn, leaving Takato's hand suspended in mid-air and her mind cursing itself for getting so caught up in her thoughts. "I-I'll see you tomorrow, then. And if either of you are late, I'm leaving without you, you got that?!" She flashed a glare at Takato in particular, the mask back up.

Takato nodded unsurely, dropping his hand back to his side. "Okay…uh…see ya."

Far from his modest use of words, his mind raced with a thousand questions. Was that his imagination? Or an honest mistake? Why was she clutching his hand like that? Was this proof?

Henry waved Rika off before she turned away without the same, striding hurriedly and leaving the boy blinking in confusion. It hadn't been something he'd done, had it?

To add to the former Tamer's bewilderment, Takato likewise made his apologies for his hurrying before heading off in another direction, his steps solid and quick, as if he were escaping from something. All that was left was a blue-haired teen, a puzzled look on his face at what he had just witnessed.

"_What was _that _about?"_

**TO BE CONTINUED…**

* * *

**A/N: **Apologies for yet another long wait between chapters everyone. Again, I've been insanely busy, and while it's let up slightly, I don't foresee it stopping for the foreseeable future I'm afraid. Still, patience is a virtue and all that. My next update will be on Book Seven, I'm sure a lot of you will be pleased to hear. Hope you enjoyed this one in any case, and my nice little twist at the end.

Until next time…

B.C.


	6. The Evening Before

**DISCLAIMER: I don't own Digimon, but I do own the original characters introduced in this story and my other stories (except where stated otherwise here or elsewhere by myself).**

**A/N: **Thanks to Crazyeight for beta reading.

* * *

**DIMENSIONS**

_**BOOK ONE**_

_Links_

**Rewrite**

By Blazing Chaos

* * *

**CHAPTER SIX**

_The Evening Before_

* * *

**WEDNESDAY, 14****TH**** NOVEMBER 2007**

* * *

_**Wong Residence, Shinjuku Ward**_

_**18:45 JST**_

The solidly built steps dully absorbed the sounds of each footstep, making the ascension of Henry to his floor go rather unnoticed. The light outside had been stolen from the sky, but Henry's journey back to his home was far from pitch black. Street lamps and twilight, formed from the perpetual lights of the city projected on the sky, made him feel perfectly safe. Of course, the fact he was used to having a monster on him who could easily fend off any threats, be they human or Digimon, contributed greatly to his sense of security, even though that particular Digimon was no longer with him.

Still, his mind was far from at ease, thanks to the huge revelation that the past few hours had brought to light. There was a way to get their partners back, and that completely changed their lives, even if they were never to do so. The pure knowledge that they could, even if everything else in the universe held them back, was enough to irreversibly change their world.

He had another problem of course. He hadn't the faintest clue what he'd say to his father, and yet, he could hardly dawdle. Things needed to be sorted out _before_ Hypnos and the Monster Makers quietened down for the night. Of course, he was well aware Yamaki wasn't a stranger to the midnight oil, and the Monster Makers certainly weren't either, Dolphin once having commented during the D-Reaper crisis about how a plentiful supply of coffee and a lack of fear of arthritis in old age had allowed their group to work endlessly through the night back when they were creating the Digimon in the first place.

Whether they'd be as active this time wasn't so clear cut. The world was safe, at least from Digimon, and jeopardising that again would be a tricky decision for them, one that particularly Yamaki given his history and official role would be unlikely to make in their favour, even if towards the end of their adventures he had looked upon the Digimon that served as their partners far more favourably. And it was also pretty clear what their friends thought, as made clear by what Rika had said earlier.

"**If you haven't been keeping score, it was Janyuu's idea to let us lose the Digimon in the first place."**

He winced at the thought as he arrived at the front door, pausing. The words hurt as much to hear now as they had back when Rika had said them earlier that day, and the problem was, he couldn't find a way to disagree with them. Sure, Rika's rather callous way of putting it did ignore the fact that they had been fighting something which could've destroyed them all otherwise at the time, but regardless, his Dad had _known _about the risk of losing their Digimon. They put the program into Terriermon, for god's sake! Why hadn't he told them?

Sighing, Henry looked down at the floor below. He knew he had to look at things logically, he couldn't hold a grudge. That was why, after weeks of holding his father in resentment for what he'd done, Henry had accepted an apology from a man who knew all too well what he had done wrong.

But, what Rika had said, and the prospect of the Digimon returning – it had just brought those emotions flooding back en force, and with them a heap of bitterness. He dearly wished his father wouldn't disagree with what he was about to ask, but he knew his father's thoughts on the subject. His son, nay, two of his children had been lost to a dangerous and life-threatening game that he had himself played a part in creating, and no parent ever wanted to put their child in more danger than they had to be, certainly not if it were danger of their own causing. So what was he to do?

He almost could hear Terriermon trying to reassure him now.

"**Momentai!"**

The boy sighed, picturing the dog-bunny in his mind's eye and what he would be doing if he were here right now. He'd probably be busy telling him to stop worrying about every little thing and just go with the flow, but, of course, the hypothetical situation was a paradox in that, if Terriermon were there, they wouldn't need to go about retrieving him. Still, it would probably make the next conversation he was to have a lot easier.

Henry knew he had to remember what this was all about though. This was for Terriermon, this was to save Terriermon, and this was…"_to hear the word "Momentai"_ _again from him," _he thought, a slim smile appearing on his face before fading into a grimace. He reached forth, turning the key in the lock and opening the door.

With a creak, it opened, Henry stepping into the well-lit apartment and seeing his sister rushing around, optimistic as ever but taking on a pout as she saw him arrive. She stormed over to him as he closed the front door behind him, alerting his homecoming to all those in the apartment.

"Henwy! Where were you? You said you'd be back at eight o'clock so you could help me with Pwincess Pwetty Pants on one of my dolls."

"I was seeing my friends Suzie."

"You mean the angwy kid and the mean one?"

"Suzie, you know that Takato said about a thousand times that he's not angry, right?"

"Yeah, but when he called he was weally weally angwy so he is! And don't you wemember what happened in the Digital Wowld?"

Henry's previously slight frown of annoyance turned very deep as he recalled those events all those months ago. That had been one of the worst days of their lives. Jeri lost Leomon, Takato almost lost Guilmon, they almost lost Takato, and they certainly lost a friend, even if it were one who returned to them in the end (although whether he was ever their friend in the first place was a matter for much debate). Worse still, that'd been the start of Jeri's downward spiral, one that had ended in near-destruction of the whole world. It wasn't her fault, of course, but she still had yet to get over the post-traumatic stress she had suffered as a result.

Sure, she smiled daily, and had started to get back in the swing of things, perhaps with help from the psychiatrist she was seeing (Henry certainly didn't envy that person's job – it wasn't exactly the most normal case of PTSD, and the amount of government non-disclosure forms they must've been needing to fill out certainly wouldn't make their life easy), but, too often for Henry's liking, she had a thousand yard stare, and they could only imagine what she was recalling. All the pain; all the horror; all the destruction she had caused whilst trapped within her red alien world. Her conscious mind knew that it wasn't her fault, but unconsciously she couldn't help but blame herself. It was having an impact too on her relationships, particularly with others prone to self-blame, like Takato, who had constantly been overly kind to her, even more so than usual, and Jeri could clearly tell except she was far too polite and kind to point it out to him. God only knew how much Impmon was blaming himself for what he had done all those days ago. If he still existed, that was.

Still, despite the harsh memories that Suzie's question brought back, she wasn't to know the full extent of things. When she was older, she'd probably better come to terms with the full events and aftermath of that day, but for her it was just a scary memory from when Leomon went away and when Takato went from being the angwy kid to being the very angwy kid. At least lately Jeri had been improving, and she had made a point of only staying off school for appointments. She didn't want to distance herself from reality, not anymore, and she knew she'd miss her friends otherwise. At least she had all of them to help her, and Henry was intent on doing so. Just because they didn't have their Digimon any more didn't mean they weren't a group, and it certainly didn't mean they weren't friends any more even if those who went to other schools further away, namely Rika and Ryo, didn't meet up with the others as regularly.

"_I hope I'm not being optimistic." _"I remember Suzie. But he's not _usually_ that angry."

"He is. And anyway, why couldn't I come with you?"

"We were just catching up, that's all. You didn't miss anything." A point-blank lie.

"So why couldn't I come, huh?" Suzie pouted, Henry groaning in annoyance and dearly hoping for something to interrupt this moment before he was forced to admit the truth.

"Hello son," Janyuu greeted, a smile on his face as he arrived to save Henry from his sisterly woes. However, he wasn't exactly the person that Henry looked forward to seeing right now, but getting this out of the way was probably for the best.

"Oh, hey Dad."

"Is your sister annoying you again?" Janyuu asked, putting his hand on his youngest daughter's head and ruffling her ginger locks.

"I'm not annoying," Suzie complained, crossing her arms and pouting again. "Henry is."

"Well, how about you go along and play while I tell him off?"

"Okay," Suzie answered, sticking her tongue out at her brother before running away, probably to continue torturing her (thankfully inanimate) dolls. Janyuu and Henry watched her run, before the former smiled and looked at his son.

"How were your friends?"

"Oh…yeah, they were good. Listen, dad…we need to talk."

"Oh?"

"Yeah…something came up."

"Oh."

* * *

Henry closed his eyes where the pair was now sat in his father's office, dearly hoping the explanation he had just given would be well received. By Janyuu's expression throughout, however, it was pretty clear that his hopes would once again not be fulfilled.

"So, you see, we can't go back to save them without assistance. It'd be sui…a dangerous mission."

"I see," Janyuu replied, leaning back on his swivel chair and frowning before he looked over at his son. "So what do you want me to do?" he asked, already knowing what the response was going to be. That was the problem; he knew exactly what Henry would want from him. Permission, aid, contacts, and he knew that none of those would or could be easily given.

"Well, I was hoping that you'd let me go, and, well, contact Hypnos and the other Monster Makers and arrange us some help? We could really use it."

A silence fell, Janyuu looking his son in the eyes with a questioning gaze. Was this really what he wanted? To risk his life again, in far more dangerous circumstances. Both he and his son had seen the scans of the Digital World, and his son had even been there: it was a huge place and very hard to find others in. It was a miracle, as he had heard from their stories of what had happened there, that they had ever managed to reunite at all, and usually was only because they were heading for a common destination.

But, as much as the older man wanted to point out this, he found himself unable to. A familiar wave of guilt washed over him, guilt that had enshrouded him every single day since he had made his mistake - since they had _all_ made that mistake. Even the checks and balances that being in a team, the Monster Makers, had brought, they still had forgotten the most important thing in creating their Red Card: the bond between Tamer and human. So many times it had been mentioned by his son, so many times they had seen it in action to be so powerful, to be their only chance to resist total annihilation, and so many times had he felt such a pang of guilt since for breaking it. How could they have forgotten such a thing?

That didn't matter now. What mattered is that his son was searching desparately for a solution, for a way to get back to what he enjoyed. Back in their Monster Maker days, when their project had been shut down, he'd have given anything to get back to it, but he had to go on with life. Shibumi didn't. Shibumi continued, pressing on that dream. And, had he known, Janyuu would never have stopped him.

And he knew he couldn't do the same to his son.

"Alright then. But you have to promise me you'll be careful. "

His son's face looked ready to light up with that, but Henry restrained himself, respectfully nodding. "I will. Thanks Dad."

"You won't have any defence to help you until you find one of your partners. This will be far more risky than last time." Janyuu felt like he was beginning to lecture, even wagging a finger, but he knew he couldn't help it. He had to know that Henry had truly considered the risks.

"I know. We'll keep out of harm's way as much as we can. Takato, Rika and I won't just walk into the jaws of trouble…" _"…not again."_

Janyuu raised an eyebrow. "Just you three? What about the others?"

"We don't want to put too many people at risk, so it's just the three of us who'll be going. Plus, it'll take ages to contact them all and get them ready, and you know how Kazu's parents reacted _last time_ when he just walked out on them."

"Oh, I see. I guess that's a smart move – just be ready for their complaints when you return."

"I doubt it. We'll be bringing their Digimon back, they'll be overjoyed!"

"You're too naïve. Your mother still complains about my snoring when I help out with the chores," Janyuu chuckled. "People love to look a gift horse in the mouth," he said, as he swung around and picked up the phone from his desk. "Now, let's see. It's nearly half seven. Shibumi normally reserves this time for watching Doctor Who, but he still owes me for not taking his favourite mouse during a poker game back in '84…"

"_The army of geeks," _Henry sighed mentally.

* * *

_**Nonaka Residence, Shinjuku Ward**_

_**18:45 JST**_

Rika slipped open the front gate to her home, before stepping across the paving slabs to her front, sliding door, light gently flowing through its translucent panels. Entering the home was like entering a cosy bed or car, the warmth always seeming perfect, the lights not bright enough to be harsh but not dim enough to be useless, a testament to the normal 'head housekeeper', her grandma, Seiko Hata. The woman looked up from where she drank a cup of tea opposite the television on the Western sofas in the living room area of the open-plan reception/kitchen/dining room, placing the mug down on the table.

"Hey grandma," the redhead greeted. Even in the past when she was fighting everyone and everything that dared to even look at her, whether it wanted to hinder her or help her, she could never truly do the same to her grandma, the sweet woman who'd always been there to pick up the pieces left by Rumiko's spotty parenting. Without her help, she knew she would never have gone to the Digital World at all: Seiko's quick understanding and acceptance of the situation, upon meeting Renamon, let Rika know that she could go, as, in spite of the fact she would always claim aloud to the opposite, she would never have left without at least telling one of her parental figures where she was off to (a qualm Kazu seemed to lack). She was appreciative of being able to tell and get permission from her grandmother only as well, since she learnt afterwards that Rumiko had had a fit when she heard the news of her daughter's departure.

Alas, this looked to be a repeat of that episode, and hence she really didn't want to tell her mother now.

"Good evening Rika," she said with a smile. "You're home later than normal. Did anything interesting happen?"

If this were Rumiko, she would probably have objected to such 'prying', more out of fear of having to tell her about her impending trip than an actual fear of loss of privacy. "For once, yeah. Is mom home?"

"She called and said her photo shoot was running late: one of the models was stuck in traffic getting to the studio from the airport."

"Perfect," Rika uttered under her breath as she sat down on the sofa next to the woman, but unfortunately not quiet enough to avoid being overheard.

Seiko frowned. "I thought you two were getting along better now." Besides, they barely spent any time in the same room together. Why would Rika be so happy about her absence?

"It's not that. We are." _"Even if she isn't always around to be a mother." _Rika knew she couldn't really complain. During the D-Reaper crisis, she had seen how others had it so far worse off than her: Jeri's mother was dead, and Jeri would've given anything to have her back. But…Takato always complained about how his mother made him do homework, or work late shifts, or be really worried about him just being out of the house at times. It hit her as incredibly babyish, but at the same time she envied it. To have a mom who was constantly there, who didn't call in to say she was staying in some distant hotel one night, or who didn't bring home a stream of dates (or simply meet them at the aforementioned hotel), some of which Rika was certain was simply for her career. Sure, it was nice to have money, and not have to worriedly overhear parents saying that maybe the bakery business wasn't exactly a perfect stream of income (a story Takato had mentioned to her quietly before), but it seemed like a poor substitute to have a lack of a mother and a father.

And yet, she found it hard to fault the woman, simply because she knew that Rumiko was now trying to put in the effort to make time for her (although not usually very successfully, particularly since she wasn't able to fill the gaping hole that Renamon left in her life), and that she had come to terms with the fact she wasn't a brilliant parent. Rika speculated in fact that she always knew, but simply tried to ignore the harsh reality up until events blew it wide open for her. Rika knew she herself wasn't perfect either by any means, and so found it hard to fault her for this. Still, at times, she had the feeling that maybe they were just too different as people to really get along, or perhaps even just too similar.

But still, it was hard to be told she couldn't do something by a mother who was never there for the things she could do. And that was why Rika didn't want her mother to be involved in giving her permission for this trip, particularly since it would probably sound suicidal to her. Heck, it sounded pretty suicidal to Rika too.

"What is it then?"

"Takato found something."

"What?"

Rika breathed in, and prepared herself for the worst. "A portal to the Digital World."

"Oh." Definitely not the amazed response she was hoping for.

"Yeah. And me, Takato and Henry are going back to get back our Digimon."

Seiko pushed aside that point for a moment, going back a step in the conversation. "I thought Henry's father said that it was not possible for it to come back."

"Yeah. I don't know how though, but it's back."

"You want permission from me to go then."

Rika nodded. Her grandmother had taken it surprisingly well, with no tea-spitting or anything – undoubtedly helped by the fact that her cup was still on the table. Nonetheless, she completely demolished Rika's hopes in three words, as she reached for that very tea cup.

"Ask your mother," she said, taking a sip. She wanted to give Rika a pause in which to think, but she knew what the girl would simply blurt out whatever came to mind.

"Do I have to?"

She finished the sip, putting the mug back on its saucer. "Yes Rika. Last time I bailed you out and she was mad at me. I know you're trying to avoid telling her again, but you have to face up to your problems for once."

Rika looked ready to argue back, her lips pressed and her eyes focusing. But she resisted it, sighing, and evidently realising there was nothing she could do about it. Her teeth, instead, resorted to biting her lip. "So when will she be back?"

"She wasn't too sure. She seemed to think it would be 11 o'clock or so."

"_So much for an early night for an early start,"_ Rika groaned, frowning. "What am I meant to say to her?"

"Tell her the truth. And hope she understands."

Rika sat back straight in the sofa, folding her arms. "She never will."

"She's just worried about you dear, and she deserves to know, and see you before you go."

"She'll say no."

"We'll see. Would you like a calming cup of tea?"

"Yes please," Rika said, her tones still touched with irritation as Seiko got to her feet, wandering over to the kitchen area and flicking the kettle's switch on, a familiar click in this household.

"So how were Takato and Henry?" she idly asked as she reached to the pot of teabags. "You haven't seen them in a while."

There it was; her grandma's penance for easily working out whatever had been on Rika's mind. "They were the same as always." Had she been purposefully avoiding them? Or was it simply circumstance? "Henry's worried sick about all this, and Takato's dreamy as ever."

She mentally cursed. Why-oh-why did she use that wording. 'Dreamy'. A Freudian slip, perhaps? Or a symptom of a self-torturing mind. Besides, even _if_ she had something for him, he was hardly the most 'well-built' of all guys, and certainly not handsome, although she speculated that puberty might see to that once the boys finally caught up with the girls in that hellish race. He was Takato though – even if he looked like George Clooney, he would still be a loveable, bumbling fool.

"_A bumbling fool," _Rika re-iterated, avoiding another mental Freudian slip. That diary had been a worse enough move, even more so after it vanished, but now this unwanted 'thing' seemed to be infecting her life. Unfortunately, as Seiko's back ended up to her as she reached to get a mug from the cupboard, she couldn't tell if her mistake had been noticed or not.

"Tea's ready."

* * *

_**Matsuki Residence, Shinjuku Ward**_

_**18:45 JST**_

Takato had to slip in through the side entrance of the bakery, thanks to the locked doors at the front. He was surprised his mother trusted him with keys to the place, but he was thankful all the same, as it gave him a certain ability to sneak in unannounced.

Unfortunately, he came face to face with his mother when he opened the door, instantly putting on his usual cheesy grin reserved for situations like these. "Hey Mom."

"Your dinner is in the oven," she said very factually.

"_Damn…wish Guilmon were here to warm it up. Or dispose of it."_

At that moment, his father came through from the kitchen, and unfortunately let loose one of those sentences that was like caffeine to a mother's mind. "Hey son, how was Rika?"

"She was fine."

Mie's hands went to her hips as she unleashed that horrible voice all of her kind reserved for speculative questions about their children's romantic encounters. "Rika, eh?"

"A-And Henry. He was fine too," he quickly added, but it failed to make the look of contemplation vanish from the woman's face. Which left only one other option for changing her opinion about where he had been for the past hour. "And…there's something I need to tell you guys. Can we, uh…go sit down?"

Mie glanced worriedly to Takehiro. What was up? The tone from her son was unmistakably one of those one expected to be followed by very bad news – he was (hopefully) too young to have got a girl pregnant. Had someone been hurt? Maybe Takato had been expelled and hadn't said anything? Was Jeri okay? She hadn't looked great the last time the woman had seen her, even if Takato said she was improving. She would make a very nice girlfriend for her son if she improved enough, and it was so obvious that he had _something_ for her. A mother knew…but still, what was up?

"Get your dinner on the way," Takehiro noted with a slight grin. Takato felt like breathing a sigh of relief, or at least ease – his father was often a perfect antidote to his mother. After collecting the plate – stone cold, unfortunately – he returned to the living room to find his mother and father sitting on one couch, leaving him alone to sit on the other, feeling like he was before a pair of judges. Or cops. His mom was definitely the 'bad cop' in this scenario.

"You know how we thought the portal vanished when we defeated the D-Reaper."

"Yeah…oh…" his father replied, already knowing what his son was about to say next. To be honest, he had had a nagging inkling this day would come at some point.

"Yeah. It's reappeared, and Rika, Henry and I are going through it tomorrow to get Guilmon and the others back."

Like a greyhound once the doors had opened, his mother was instantly upon him. "You most certainly are not."

"But…I have to get him back. This portal could close any time. Henry's going to get his dad and Hypnos to help out. And he's a part of our family, mom!" Takato exclaimed, having pretty much rehearsed what he would say on the way home, although he wound up blurting out all of his arguments in one fell swoop out of panic.

Mie was about to retort, but her husband put his hand on top of hers, drawing her attention. And then, in one of those things that only a couple married for so long could do, he interjected. "We'll let you know in the morning."

"_But…" _Takato thought. He wanted to say it, but he knew objecting now would probably severely hurt his case. Still, he felt he was getting as good a response as "no" – even after a night's chatter, they were hardly going to agree to it. His mother always won the argument.

Plus…he had to admit she was right too. This _was_ a suicide mission, and it was going to be difficult. He didn't want to go any more than she didn't want him to go. But…he felt like he had to. He didn't have any other choice. He had promised Guilmon they'd see each other again, and he wasn't about to give up on that promise.

"I think I've lost my appetite," He frowned and stood up before he returned the plate to the kitchen, his parents watching the whole time with nervous eyes. His voice was flat and surprisingly emotionless for a boy who normally pronounced anything. "I'm off to do my homework, and then go to bed," he added, starting off with a fake yawn and ironically ending up with a real one.

"_What have you done with my son?" _Mie thought, as she stood up. Doing homework? "This early?"

"Yeah. I'm really tired from today," the boy said, wandering to the staircase, before pausing and correcting his idiocy by heading for the computer to finish what he had started earlier, all the time conscious of the eyes fixated on him. "Stupid online homework," he mumbled, pulling back the chair.

"Oh, yeah, the internet's not working now," his dad said, looking highly apologetic. "Sorry, but you'll have to ask for an extension to your deadline."

"_That excuse has never worked before, and I doubt it'll work with Asagi again," _Takato thought, wanting to slam his head into the computer monitor but instead turning around. "Then I'm off to bed, goodnight." He headed for the staircase, taking the briefest of glimpses back at his parents, now looking to be on the edge of taking, ready to start when he left. As much as part of him wanted to overhear what they said, he knew it would only depress him, and so he headed for his room instead.

Stepping inside and closing the door, he sat down against it. So that was that, was it? Not even a real chance to talk it out, to let his case be heard.

No.

No. This wasn't about to be it. Parental approval or no parental approval, he wasn't losing Guilmon.

To his surprise, he found his hands had formed fists, and his plan he was preparing now blurred out even the arguing now beginning downstairs. They would be distracted. They wouldn't hear him.

His alarm was reset, and quietened.

His bag was pulled from under the bed, and packed.

His D-Arc and Goggles were left on the desk, and his clothes went into the rucksack.

He even managed to sneak downstairs and take some food once his parents had finally stopped arguing and gone to sleep. They probably just assumed he was hungry after having no dinner. He hoped so at least.

As he pulled the sheets over him in bed and flicked the lights out, the realisation of what he planned to do hit him. What had come over him, nay, possessed him, to come up with such a plan, to defy his parents? He didn't always follow the straight and narrow, but this plan was like something Kazu or even Rika would come up with, not him.

He glanced to his D-Arc, illuminated by the city light streaming in the window.

"Hang in there buddy," he whispered, before turning over and going to sleep.

* * *

_**Akiyama Residence, Kyushu**_

_**21:59 JST**_

Scratches into the paper left faint dents on the desk underneath, invisible to the eye now but sure to be obvious after a few years of its use, the wounds of a thousand homework. The desk light focused on the paper, a computer sitting silently above, for this particular boy's school had not yet made the jump into 'e-homework'. A year above Takato Matsuki, his work was marginally harder too.

But, of course, he knew nothing of what was happening all those miles away. For Ryo Akiyama, the 14th November was a normal day.

And then the phone rang.

Ryo's eyes flicked to it across the desk, the wireless handset ringing in its holder. He ignored it at first, assuming that his father would and that his homework was more important, but as it continued to chime, he finally resigned to picking it up.

"Akiyama residence, who is this?"

There was a pause, before a reasonably familiar voice came over the handset. "Hey, this is Rika's grandmother."

"Oh, hello. How are you?"

"I'm good. I have to tell you something."

"What?" For the woman who seemed to usually calmly talk for years, this was surprisingly uptight and to the point. "Did something happen to Rika and the others?"

"No. Not exactly. The portal to the Digital World in the park has reappeared."

"It's reappeared? That's…" he exclaimed, trying to take it in, as images of Monodramon flashed across his mind, bringing a light smile to his face. "Fantastic!"

"Rika Nonaka and the others are heading to the Digital World tomorrow morning. Can you be in Tokyo by then?"

"Uh, yeah, I guess so."

"Good. Goodbye."

Before Ryo could even reply, the phone was hung up. He blinked for a moment, stared at the phone for a while, and then dismissed the conversation as an oddity, assuming he was remembering it wrong. Besides, if the portal had reappeared, it'd surely be chaotic in the Nonaka household, and so Seiko's short-talking probably wasn't all that surprising.

Glancing to the clock, he saw it was just about ten o'clock. If he left on the first train of the day, he could probably make just make it. But was it right to abandon his homework?

The question was dropped almost as quickly as it was raised, as he reached into his drawer, pulling out his blue, white-ringed D-Arc and a rucksack. "Monodramon, hang in there…"

* * *

_**Nonaka Residence, Shinjuku Ward**_

_**23:07 JST**_

Rika had rather jumped the gun, in spite of Seiko's objections, and her packed bag sat on the floor in her room, her (identical) clothes for the next day laid out alongside and a lunchbox sitting in the kitchen. Right now, she herself was dumped on the couch, staring at the television and some horror movie. Seiko was distracted by a book, a pair of glasses perched on her nose, probably so she could ignore the sheer amount of red on the screen by now, something which barely seemed to faze Rika. In fact, she even yawned, although it was more out of tiredness than boredom.

"What's keeping her?" Her words melded into the end of the yawn.

"I'm sure she'll be home soon dear." That tone was all too familiar – it was the voice her grandma made when she wanted her granddaughter to believe she knew everything was fine when underneath she was highly worried or annoyed. Her stay-out mother meant she had heard it plenty of times in her thirteen years.

And then the phone rang, almost as if it heard them talking. Rika bit her lip in irritation, while Seiko wandered over to it.

"Hello, Nonaka residence…oh, hello dear. I was hoping we'd be seeing you home by…oh, I see. Rika wanted to talk to you about…oh. Take care of yourself then honey, and I'll see you tomorrow," she stressed the last words, but the phone hung up before she could even finish them.

Turning, Seiko noticed Rika was already gone, and heard the slamming of a sliding door down the hallway. She dropped the phone onto the table, and lightly banged her head against a cupboard. "Rumiko. It's always about your career."

Rika fell back onto her futon, ready to snuggle up and fall asleep. The reflex was supposedly a memory of childhood, when one would usually cuddle up to their mother, but she couldn't say she was sure such was true for her. Her hand fell out in front of her eyes, and she stared at it, a pale pink armband from her mother a month ago fastened round it, something she had been resistant to wearing until she realised she would have to compromise on things like this if she wanted to improve their relationship.

It hit the wardrobe almost silently. Why should she wear it, when her mother didn't bother to pay her side of the deal?

She was probably in some hotel right now, getting her rocks off with some guy Rika'd never meet. Not that she'd want to. The whole of the fashion industry consisted of vain, innocuous ninnies who believed they were somehow important and that sleeping the way to the top was perfectly fine. Meeting another one of them was not her priority. And even if that wasn't where her mother was, she was probably at some huge party trying to find contacts to further her career – 'if you don't work at it, you fall out of the circle', she had said once when slightly tipsy. Rika honestly didn't care. Money wasn't a problem, even if the model known as 'Makino' hung up her clothes for the next ten years.

So why did she do it?

As much as Rika wanted to say 'whatever' and roll over to sleep, her mind forced her to keep thinking, to stay awake, and her anger continued to grow. Her grandma was forcing her to wait for a woman to come home whose inevitable act of rejection would be the first bit of proper parenting she'd done in ages.

Before the Digimon outbreak, the model had seriously been considering upping and moving to the US, as much as Seiko didn't want to abandon her roots and Rika had been apathetic to the idea. Since Renamon's existence had seemed to have such an impact on their family as a whole, the idea had vanished from the radar, but Rika suspected it was still there, lurking under the surface, and now that the Kitsune had vanished, it was only a matter of time before Rumiko returned to her career enough to suggest it once again.

And now she had a reason to stay. She wasn't apathetic any more. Even without Renamon, she had Takato, and Henry, and all the others.

Not that she ever met up with them. She told herself their school and the park were too far, but she'd taken barely 15 minutes to reach it. She told herself she, and they, needed to get their lives back in gear after the disruption the D-Reaper had caused (for some of them, like Jeri, that disruption was mental as well as to their routine and schoolwork). But she was lying to herself. Every time she reached for the phone, she paused, and couldn't do it. She couldn't bring herself to 'interrupt' their lives, to force herself upon people again, not when she had a habit of pulling the mood down.

So, in the absence of the real Takato, her imaginings had run wild. He had been the only one to try and contact her these past few weeks: first for their meet-up, then unfortunately on the one night her mother was home in a week, and today to show her the portal. Each time her 'imaginary' image, dismissed as idiotic by the logical parts of her mind, was vindicated by reality. Takato was like she remembered. As much as she didn't want him to be. And…with him…she felt…happy.

She cringed at how she began to bring other issues into this. She didn't even want to think about whatever it was that was going on with Takato. It was a phase. A convenience of timing. They'd all been apart, and he was the only one to bother to contact him. That was it.

"_But it isn't, is it?" _she thought, her mental voice unmistakably Renamon's. It was what she would inevitably say in this situation, should she have been overhearing.

There was another person, nay, Digimon, that she missed. So much. At least her mother was reachable (sometimes), and her friends phone-able. That was why she had to do this. To get to that world, and get her partner back. The partner who brought about for her family what years of living together never did: a speck of happiness. She wasn't so naïve as to think that would make everything instantly better, but she knew that her sanity would only survive for so much longer without the yellow Kitsune.

Her eyes flicked across to the packed bag, and her clothes alongside. She reached over and into it, pulling out a cell phone and some headphones, and set the alarm, placing them over her head.

It didn't matter what Rumiko said.

If she was only going to be a rainy day mother, she had no right to complain about her searching for her everyday sunshine.

Renamon.

* * *

_**Wong Residence, Shinjuku Ward**_

_**00:29 JST**_

Henry for the third call in that hour alone so far, found himself in the familiar and unenviable position of 'phone listener': forced to sit on the seat in his dad's office and listen while the man talked on the phone to everyone under the sun. To be fair, 'forced' was an overly strong word: he had been away for an hour or so collectively over the past few hours, usually to eat, watch TV or arrange his bag (optimistically), but like a magnet he was drawn back to the conversations with a pair of crossed fingers and a prayer. Trying to reconstruct the other side from his dad's words was difficult, and his accuracy was often way-off when his dad summarised what had been said afterwards.

One particularly interesting thing had certainly come up: the virus that had been sweeping through the internet turned out to have a taste of the Digital Hazard about it, something which made Henry cringe upon hearing about it. The memories of what that symbol and code had done to them before could never be erased. Now it was in a virus, dubbed the 'Hazard Virus' by Rob McCoy, what could it do? What would it do? And how on earth did the Hazard get into a computer virus? Just what was happening in the Digital World? Needless to say, this particular fact had given those on the other end of the phone plenty of reason to discourage a trip, the situation left even more unpredictable.

"So a scan for their purposes would take at least a day? Yes, their safety is definitely paramount to me," he said, glancing to Henry with a frown before continuing. "But I also know that we can't be certain of how long…I suppose so." He felt like he was letting down his son so much, even though he knew why Yamaki and the Monster Makers had their objections. This portal had not been expected, and to send a human through it without the utmost level of tests (not least to ensure its destination was where they believed it was) seemed like insanity. And if it didn't last long enough for those tests to be undertaken, it was a good sign that using it would've been a mistake. "I imagine that'll be quite difficult to tell to some of them though. I know they really…"

"Can I have the phone dad?" Henry wasn't too certain on whether what he was about to do was brave or foolhardy, the product of genius or a sleep-deprived mind. Quite reasonably, the man looked rather worried.

"Henry would like to speak to you," he said, before passing it over.

"Yamaki," the boy said, hearing the man's voice, one he heard practically every day during the D-Reaper crisis, flicker back into his life.

"Henry. Your father implied you have something to say?"

"We're going to the Digital World tomorrow morning."

"With all due respect for your abilities, I'm not sure that's wise. We have been discussing this all…"

"As much as this is probably Rika or Takato rubbing off on me, I'm sorry but this isn't something for discussion. We're going to the Digital World tomorrow, and if you aren't going to back us up, we'll go alone, including finding a way home. Got that?"

"Understood, but…"

"Good," Henry interrupted, before passing the phone back to his surprised father. "We'll need comms, and someone to work on an Ark to get us out of there." He didn't quite look at his father's eyes when saying this. He knew he was playing it rather fast and loose…but he knew that he wouldn't hear the end of it from his friends if his inaction didn't get them anywhere, or, worse, left them deprived of assistance when it was critical to their survival there. "And anything else you can think of would be good too. I'm off to bed."

His father nodded at first, and Henry nodded back, feeling like he'd crossed a line, and not at all feeling good for it. This wasn't him. But if it was what he had to do to hear one of Terriermon's quips again, it something worth doing. _"Never thought I'd be thinking that."_

He began to head to his room, but Janyuu called him at the last moment. "I want you to be careful there. This won't be like last time. You can't let yourselves all get split up. You need to get in there, find your partners, and get out. I'll do what I can to help, but you'll be on your own most of the time."

"I understand dad. Thanks."

"Glad to be able to help in some way."

As Henry, with a yawn and a nod, headed off to his room (and to pack some more), he turned back to the phone, chattering to itself, and put it to his ear. "Sorry Yamaki, I was talking to Henry."

"I hope you're aware that this puts us in a _very_ tricky situation."

"I know. I…" he began, before a double beep sounded on the line. "Sorry, I have a call on the other number," he apologised, before putting Yamaki on hold for a moment. "Hello, Wong Residence."

"Hey, Tao." There it was, the familiar voice of one Gorou 'Shibumi' Mizuno. Of everyone he had spoken to since hearing the news from Henry (and breaking it to the whole Hypnos community), he was definitely the most optimistic, and this call was no exception.

"Hey. I've been doing some thinking."

"I wish I had a cup of tea to spit out," Janyuu chuckled sarcastically.

"I was reading through all the files about the D-Reaper incident when trying to work out how the portal came back, and I've had an idea."

"You've worked it out?"

"No. But I have a plan, and if we do this right, we might just be able to make everyone happy here."

"Make everyone happy?"

"Yeah. But it's the kind of plan that could get too many hopes up, so can we keep it between us Monster Makers?"

Janyuu glanced to the doorway to ensure Henry's absence. "Okay. What's the plan?"

"It's a simple matter of playing God."

How he'd missed Shibumi.

**TO BE CONTINUED…**

* * *

Well, after a very long while, I'm pleased to bring you another rewrite chapter too. The first and second halves of the first scene in this one were done months apart, so I hope it doesn't show. And we'll still not to the end of Chapter 2 of the original, even though we're already six chapters into the rewrite. Whether that's because I went too fast with the original or I'm taking it too slowly with this is a question for another day. Hope you enjoyed the rewrite, and that it answered a few questions about all this.

**If you'd like to read on without waiting for the rewrite, start from halfway through Chapter 2 of the original Book One (the point where a new day begins).**

Until next time…

B.C.


	7. The Morning After

**DISCLAIMER: I don't own Digimon, but I do own the original characters introduced in this story and my other stories (except where stated otherwise here or elsewhere by myself).**

**A/N: **Thanks to Crazyeight for beta reading.

* * *

**DIMENSIONS**

_**BOOK ONE**_

_Links_

**Rewrite**

By Blazing Chaos

* * *

**CHAPTER SEVEN**

_The Morning After_

* * *

**THURSDAY, 15****TH**** NOVEMBER 2007**

* * *

_**Nonaka Residence, Shinjuku Ward**_

_**07:40 JST**_

Beep.

Beep.

Beep.

_Beep._

_Beep._

_Beep._

_BEEP!_

_BEEP!_

_BEEP!_

_**BEEP!**_

_**BEEP!**_

_**BEEEEEEEPP!**_

"I gett iit," groggily groaned a voice, as a hand scrambled around searching for something nearby. It found something long and extremely slim, and yanked on it, but the device refused to come with, the cable leaping out of it. It had the desired effect of silencing the beeping…through the earphones, at least.

Rika sat up and quickly grabbed for the MP3 player, silencing it before it woke up the whole household. Which, unless anything had significantly changed since the previous day, was currently just her and her grandma.

Even if her mother was there, it wouldn't have changed her plans. Rather quickly, off came her nightgown, and on went her new clothes from nearby, the futon promptly rolled up into a cupboard. Her bag was grabbed, and, with all the subtlety of her partner, her lunchbox vanished from the kitchen side as well. Indeed, it was remarkable that, as she quietly rolled the front door aside, there was a pair of eyes watching from behind at all.

The face attached frowned, and began pressing at a phone handset, as Rika's back vanished from sight, leaping out into the outside world.

* * *

_**Outside Matsuki Residence, Shinjuku Ward**_

_**07:49 JST**_

A pair of feet landed, with a fair bit of noise and a fair lack of grace, on the cracked concrete in the alley alongside the _Matsuki Family Bakery_. Eyes looked up to where they had come from, and over a shoulder to see if they had been noticed. Knees were rubbed, shoulders and hands shifted a bag on a back, and feet began to pound at that concrete once again.

* * *

_**Nonaka Residence, Shinjuku Ward**_

_**07:49 JST**_

"**Hello?"**

"I thought you'd never pick up. Where are you?"

"**I'm still at the hotel. Mom, I met this editor for **_**Eye**_** magazine in the States, and he said he wants me to do a shoot in America this weekend, and he offered me a column in the magazine looking at Japanese fashion trends!"**

"That's fantastic dear." The voice had a strong note of sarcasm, quite uncharacteristic for the source apart from when, as her daughter should've known, she was extremely mad. "Are you forgetting _something_?" she pressed.

"**I think that's everything. I checked my calendar and I can clear up this weekend for it with a few calls. Oh, that reminds me, what did Rika want to say?"**

"That she's running away."

"**Wait, what?"**

"The portal to the Digital World reappeared in the park, and she wanted to go back there with Takato and Henry and bring their Digimon back. After what happened last time, I told her she had to ask you, so she stayed up late at night waiting for you to get home. She needed your support, and you let her down."

"**So she's run away for that? Stop her! She'll get killed!"**

"Missy, you need to get your butt firmly back home, and stop her yourself! I'll see you in Shinjuku Park _by_ 8:25, okay?"

Seiko didn't even wait for the reply, promptly slamming the phone down. Sometimes she felt like she didn't know her daughter any more.

* * *

_**Katou Residence, Shinjuku Ward**_

_**07:49 JST**_

Hands jammed down into the bed, and eyes snapped open, a lip quivering in fear. Glance was paid to the alarm clocks red numbers, flicking across to **07:45** before it let loose a ring.

The girl twirled across, hitting the off button. She didn't need to be woken up by it. She'd woken herself up. By 'falling'.

Making sure the floor was where it should've been, and that she wasn't still falling, she dangled her legs off the edge of her bed before leaping down, the feeling far too similar to the one she had felt only a few moments ago. Wandering across to her desk, past her already-packed schoolbag, she opened a drawer and pulled out a small book. Opening it and taking out the pencil clipped within, she wrote four words.

**Dream.**

The emotions attached to said words, unfortunately, failed to vanish as the psychiatrist said they would. The diary was not a magic bullet. But it was a start.

She caught a glimpse of her hair in the corner of her eyes, and looked up to see just how messed up it was in the mirror. Sighing, she slipping back a page, and another, and another. For whatever lie below on the rest of each diary entry, every one started with a play on the same words.

A few days ago.

**Dream again.**

A week ago.

**I had that dream again.**

A bit longer.

**I keep having that dream every night, and still wake up frightened and thinking I'm falling. What's wrong with me?**

And finally, the first, water damage in neat circles across it.

**Dear Diary,**

**I had a dream last night, and I really don't know what to do. Leomon appeared, and I was really pleased to see him. But then he grabbed his sword and stabbed me, and I fell back in so much pain. One moment I thought I was on the edge of the Hypnos building, and then I woke up in bed, feeling like I was falling. I want to cry so much. **

The reason why she felt she'd let him down she couldn't even bring herself to write in words. She knew it so much she didn't need to, and if she forgot it she simply didn't want to remember.

By standing here, further tears joining those already on the page, she knew she was letting him down, because she couldn't let him go.

* * *

_**Matsuki Residence, Shinjuku Ward**_

_**08:00 JST**_

"Takehiro, is that boy up yet or what? I'm not having him use his alarm as an excuse to miss school again," Mie said, as she set up the till for the day's work, sorting the float into the various money drawers in its bottom. By the end of the day, it would be bulging – not that it made much difference to their overall financial situation. The bakery business left them steady and level, but at least they weren't going under or anything, what with all the doomsayers in the media talking about how a recession was potentially on the horizon.

Her husband nodded, pausing from kneading dough and heading to the stairwell. "Takato! Are you up?" he called, putting a kinder voice on in spite of what he knew. Predictably, Mie had decided against him going. Not that Takehiro necessarily had any reason to complain – he didn't want his son killed – but he could still empathise with the boy's situation.

No reply. Takato was probably in a deep sleep.

"You'll never get him up unless you go and hammer on his door," Mie said absently while closing the cash drawer.

The man nodded, heading up the staircase before calling out again. "Takato, are you up?" he asked through the door, but, yet again, no response. "How deep a sleep is that boy in?" he whispered to himself, at first in amusement. But something increasingly nagged him about all this, and his wife, now peering up from the foot of the stairs, was obviously of the same persuasion. "I'm coming in," he said, after glancing down to his wife, who egged him on to do so. "Hope you're decent."

Takato wasn't wearing any clothes. Takato wasn't wearing any him. For, when Takehiro opened the door, all he saw was an open window and a colder room, a few bits of paper blown off the desk.

"He's gone!"

Almost instantly, Mie was standing there next to him, a shocked look on her face. "He's run off!"

A piece of paper lapped at the man's feet, and he reached down, finding a message in black marker pen in his son's handwriting.

**I'm going to find Guilmon. Love, Takato.**

* * *

_**Wong Residence, Shinjuku Ward**_

_**08:05 JST**_

"Takato's run away too," Janyuu said, putting the phone to his chest while he shared the news with Henry, the boy's ruffled hair in his hands.

Only a few minutes after they'd had a call from a worried grandma about Rika, here was an angry mother about Takato. Henry could hear her tone of voice even without needing to listen to the call, although whether that reflected on the volume of the woman or the volume of the handset was another question entirely. As for the question of 'whatever happened to asking politely', Henry hadn't a clue, but the actions of his friends had left him with a great deal of stress.

Returning it to his ear, the man continued. "Rika's grandmother said we need to meet in the park. I've already told Yamaki to bring the equipment we need there, but I'll call him again and ask him to hurry up."

* * *

'_**Guilmon's Hideout', Shinjuku Park, Shinjuku Ward**_

_**08:10 JST**_

Rika was early. She already knew that. That was part of the plan.

For how exceedingly early she was, however, there were surprisingly more people enjoying the park than she had expected. From the nearby playground, she could hear the sounds of children laughing, their parents taking them for an early morning play before they headed off to their respective dreary worlds of school and work. She had paused, on her way past, on the sight of a daughter on the swings, her dad pushing her, but she had quickly forced the sight into the depths of her memory and rushed to the hideout. Within it, she leant with her back to the concrete wall, forcing herself to tolerate the similarly hard floor, even in spite of a certain red dinosaur's comprehensive excavations. She tried to stay hidden from sight by using the door-side wall, but knew it was futile: her back was visible anyway, and she doubted anyone looking for her wouldn't make a closer check.

She looked at her school bag, lying against the nearest of the sidewalls. It wasn't going to be under her desk at 8:30 today, that was for certain. Their respective teachers would be well within their rights to hand them very long detentions if…when their group of three returned. She found it hard to care though. Renamon's telepathy made detentions far less boring before, and it would do again. She doubted Guilmon and Terriermon would be able to help their Tamers in the same way – more likely they would simply cause extended detentions.

The first thing she had checked, unsurprisingly, was that the portal was still there. Her nerves had bugged her ragged about that particular factor the whole way, and it had left her so greatly relieved when she found it was still there as ever.

An escape.

She frowned. Not the first escape she had made today. She felt so guilty letting her grandmother down, even if she had insisted that she had to ask her mother. She was only doing it because of what happened last time, after all, and now here she was, leaving the kindest woman in the world with a huge task to deal with. She would definitely have found out by now.

Rika's eyes twitched into the hole. The sooner she went the better. She didn't want anyone catching up with them.

Certainly not her mother. But she doubted the woman would. Any form of saving her from a bad mistake would require scheduling in advance to ensure it fitted in Rumiko's all-important calendar, and would obviously be a lower priority than any modelling job that came up in the meantime.

The noise of static from the portal remotely pervaded her senses, reminding her of the reality of what she was about to do. Last time, with the knowledge that she had Renamon by her side (even if that same Digimon had told her that the Digital World was no place for humans), she felt practically invincible, even though her better sense told her that she was taking up a very risky proposition. But now, and alone, the risks were huge. Would any parent have allowed their child to take them? She doubted she herself would in the same situation, as much as she wanted to believe she had some _right_ to do this.

Reaching for her D-Arc, she raised and clenched it tight, just like she did with her eyes. This wasn't something about _right_. It was about _need_. It was about _duty_. She had to get Renamon back because she had a duty to her. They were partners, and they weren't about to stay separated, regardless of what some computer boffins intended.

An image of Janyuu flashed across her mind, and she grimaced sharply. As much as she knew it was an accident, and that he'd paid enough, his actions, and those of the Monster Makers as a whole, greatly angered her still. She clenched her D-Arc tightened, knowing this was a way to fix things. It had to be.

Would she be alone?

Would Takato come? Unless his parents had said no, she'd expected him to be here by now. Even if they said no, she doubted it'd make any difference; Takato is one of those people who followed an idea through even when a person with only one more brain cell would see it was completely hopeless. As a result, he was probably simply extremely late. She chuckled at the thought, a light blush coming to her cheeks.

"_Or on time." _Rika had forgotten just how early she was, perhaps optimistically given the boy's track record.

She shook off the warm feeling on her, and dismissed the urge to leap through the portal right that second to escape both that feeling and the static noise the digital anomaly made constantly. She openly admitted she was stubborn and rushed into things, but going alone to the Digital World was far too risky a move to attempt, even if in all likelihood it would result in Takato and Henry having to be allowed by their parents to go.

Even without that, would Henry be able to come? What with his father's clear guilt before about what he had done, she had hoped that the man might just agree to appease things, but she knew his mother might be less approving. And getting everything past Suzie would've been even more of a struggle.

She really hoped it'd just be them. She didn't want anyone else, any more stupid liabilities, along for the ride.

Promptly, she back-footed on the thought. It seemed really harsh, even for her, and particularly considering the kind of people she was lumping in there as 'stupid liabilities'. Sure, Kazu and Kenta had been walking bad luck the whole time before, but Suzie was just a child who didn't know any better, and Jeri…

She clutched her D-Arc. No static. Renamon was still alive. And Rika knew she couldn't live without her, and that was why she had to go to the Digital World.

Jeri couldn't do that. There was no quick-fix, magic bullet like that to solve her problems. Okay, so it wasn't exactly an easy quick-fix, but it was a damn sight better than knowing your partner was dead. Even with her shaken state, it was amazing the girl was coping at all, even more so that she was somehow still so kind.

Rika grated her teeth, recalling how at their reunion a few weeks back she'd seen Jeri and Takato talking. Even in spite of everything they went through, and what they'd seen, she still tried to be kind – especially to him, and he talked back so much, more than she ever did with him. Indeed, he was the first person to go up to her when she arrived. The sight, in spite of it being good and all, left Rika with a bad taste in her mouth, and the fact it did so left her with an even greater bad taste in her mouth. She hated herself for hating it, and as the feelings for Takato she so vehemently discouraged grew and grew, the irritation of how Takato talked to her without needing prompting through insult or otherwise grew exponentially, and the hatred of that irritation grew exponentially on top of that.

Because, all in all, she felt so sorry for Jeri. So, so sorry. She'd tried to put herself in the same position as Jeri before, with their common ground of a lost parent, but death was a great deal different to loss, and the same was true today with their partners. She hated herself for even trying to put herself in the same position, or for finding even a single bad word against the girl.

All in all, her head felt fit to explode.

Something flicked against the back of it, as if it were trying to spark it off, but it was a muted ping, caught up in her hair as it rang.

"Oops."

Something was set off, however. The flicked hairband fell free, and her hair dropped loose down the sides and back of her head, an aggravated expression rapidly growing on her face. She turned to face her aggressor, finding nothing but the boy she had just been thinking about, a horrified expression on his face.

"Uh-uh…you look really nice Rika."

Rika paused briefly, the smallest part of her mind wanting to accept the compliment, and a larger part wanting at least to avoid punishing him for it.

**TWACK!**

A punch in the arm. She had to keep up appearances, didn't she? Speaking of which, she reached for the hair band, returning it to her strands, trying to dismiss the fact that her face colour was now rapidly matching her hair colour, and the colour of Takato's arm as he rubbed it.

"_So much pain he's endured thanks to me," _she thought, before a comic thought turned into a saddened one. It probably wasn't just physical pain. And, indeed, she knew that if she let her feelings run riot like the sick thing at the back of her mind (called a 'heart' or something) wanted them to, she would definitely cause both him and herself emotional pain in dealing with the consequences, whether or not he said 'yes' to the big question.

She slapped the side of her head. What was she even thinking? She'd never ask him that. She wasn't _looking_ for that. This was a silly bit of pining, pining for what you couldn't have. Takato had been gone, Takato had been nice, Takato was back, and in due course the feelings would subside. Jeri had been nice to Takato, and that was where his crush had come from on her. Unfortunately, that crush appeared to be proof that the presence of one's object of desire didn't really do anything to the feelings one held.

"_So much for absence makes the heart grow fonder," _she mused, before again cursing herself for the sappy thought.

"_Did Rika just slap the side of her head?"_ Takato wondered, watching, but daren't ask. Rika didn't look like she was in the best of moods; although he was too busy nursing his arm to pay too close attention and hence had missed her blushes. "Guess a hair band doesn't flick like goggles do…"

"Don't even try to one-up me Takato, you're useless at it," Rika said in a dismissive and callous voice, ignoring the fun she had had herself yesterday with a similar concept. Takato felt immediately put off by it, and Rika in turn regretted it once she saw the look on his face.

"Oh. I can still try I guess," he said, with all the passion that'd gone into the initial attempt now dissipated.

"Sorry, bad mood," Rika said, not making any eye contact, not even as Takato moved around to sit on the other side of the door's frame across from her, dropping his bag by hers as he went.

"You ran away from home too, huh?"

"Yeah." It was a white lie. Running away from home had indeed given her a bit of a bad mood, what with letting down her grandmother and all, but that was hardly the cause of her actual bad mood. She wasn't about to tell Takato the truth though: although whether because she felt it was none of his business or feared he would convince her to let up on it. It was one of the greatest flaws in human nature that one would attempt to hold onto a depressive episode as much as possible, in spite of searching for happiness. Misery loved company, so long as it didn't try to destroy it.

"Wonder if Henry did too."

"He doesn't really seem like the type," Rika said absently, distracted by her own thoughts.

"Neither do I. I really don't know what possessed me to do this…my mom's gonna kill me."

Had she been paying more attention and thinking less about her present situation with the boy and with her mother, Rika might too have tried to work out exactly what had caused this remarkably rebellious act of Takato's. In the end, however, he offered his own explanation, although by this point he was practically talking to himself.

"I did promise Guilmon though."

And then there was silence. An uncomfortable silence for Takato, a welcome one for Rika. She tried to tell herself it was good to be rid of his talking, but if anything it itself was a welcome relief from the stirred emotions in her heart. No, what made it so welcome is that it passed the time, distracted her from what she knew was inevitably coming if they stayed here too long.

Takato quickly found a particular interest in chewing his lip, before finding a new one in the flicks of light emanating from the very edge of the portal, seen through the hole in the hideout. Anything to distract himself from this uncomfortable silence, his mind bereft of any means to make conversation.

And then he did a Very Stupid Thing, something he immediately cursed himself for. In fiddling with his pockets on his hooded jumper, he pulled out the grey pen drive from the previous day, something he had very nearly forgotten he had, flicking the tip out with its mechanism.

"What's that?"

Takato's mouth widened, and an "uh" sound came from it, before he quickly returned it to his pocket, and sheepishly laughed. "It's nothing."

She didn't buy it. Even someone with half a brain cell wouldn't think it was nothing (hence, she thought, the fact that Takato so often managed to one-up Kazu and Kenta, who didn't even have an eighth of one between them). "Let's have a look," she said, putting out her hand and making it clear the point was not for negotiation.

Takato felt worried, even though he knew she wouldn't immediately be able to access the files. Didn't he owe her an explanation about how he had her diary? Hell, didn't he still need to tell her he had at? At least the excuse that he forgot he had it on him would avoid him seeming like an insane hoarder of her most personal of belongings, her own thoughts. But, if she knew that he had it, and inevitably, had read it (so as to identify whose it was, for it lacked any name on it before the bottom), that would inevitably lead to a rather large quantity of manure hitting a rather large spinning object, and he wasn't certain that just before they went to the Digital World was the right time to do such a thing.

But, out of fear, guilt, or otherwise, he planted the memory stick into her hand with all the care and caution of someone handling nuclear waste. She looked at it confused, not expecting it.

She raised an eyebrow, trying to understand why this was so important. "Bringing your porn collection along for the ride?" She held the pen drive up like a piece of evidence.

While Takato invented a new shade of red on his cheeks, his lips managed a miracle: they made a word. In fact, they made four. "No, n-not at all." Albeit with much stuttering and stumbling in the process.

"I was joking Takato – it's only a random pen drive," she said sardonically, tossing it back to the boy without any care for its contents or value. He'd probably just left it in his pocket after school. Still… "Why aren't you?"

"Uh…no reason."

The new shade of red became part of a family.

"_What's he hiding?" _"Whatever. Porn doesn't seem like your kind of thing anyway. You go for the kind girls who leave you speechless." She forced down her urge to know what was really on the stick, and her sadness about the comment, an obvious reference to a certain brunette. She hoped Takato wouldn't notice either bubbling through.

Takato's unconscious mind did notice both, in fact, but his conscious one was wondering if his current uneasy embarrassment would ever subside. It wasn't just what Rika was saying, but the whole situation, and the underlying facts he knew, that left him completely off-guard by proceedings. What could he say? It felt so wrong to completely ignore what he knew, and leave Rika sadder…but he knew that speaking out would be just as bad.

"_Come on luck, I need something right now. You owe me. Something to distract everything from all of this…"_

"Takato! Rika! Is that you?" called out a voice. A familiar voice. And a less-than-pleased voice.

Takato leaned out to look around, while Rika barely gave the effort to turn her head, not least because of who she feared might be with the voice.

"Hey Henry," Takato called back, before Rika saw his eyes widen in his sockets. "Wow, you brought a crowd," he said, laughing nervously and glancing to Rika, another signal to her that her worst fear at this moment had come true. Of course, to him, she simply feared her mother and grandmother would catch up and scold her for running off, but she knew there were deeper issues at stake here.

She couldn't resist it any longer. She had to look.

"Rika!" called her mother when their eyes met. It wasn't even intentional, but Rika cursed her bad luck in doing so, and her own actions in turning around. She could easily have just leapt into the portal. She still could. What was her mother going to say that would change things?

With her mother stood Henry's father, her grandmother, and, quickly approaching, Takato's parents up the path, while Henry was rapidly crossing the gap between the path and the hideout to join them. Her grandmother had a concerned look on her face, her eyes pleading with Rika to talk to the blonde who right now was lower down than anyone else on her list. It was a surprise to see the model known as 'Makino' out without her full makeup or attended-to hair, a creased dress, probably from the evening before, a strange sight at this time in the morning.

"Takato Matsuki, you come right over here now!" Mie shouted, louder than Rumiko did, an action which led to her son almost jumping behind the wall of the hideout in fear. Rika wanted to laugh at the squirming expression on her face, but she could barely take her eyes off her mother's for a moment, as much as she pleaded with herself to break the stare.

"I don't think running away was one of your smarter moves Takato," Henry whispered as he arrived to join them, frowning. Rika wanted to glare at him for his seemingly Judas-like qualities right now, but was still transfixed by her own situation.

Takato glanced into the portal and stood up straight, his fists clenching and his voice suddenly losing all of its fear. "Mom, I'm going to the Digital World, and I'm going to get Guilmon back!" This finally made Rika look away and notice, and, indeed, left her somewhat surprised.

"Takato, what are you going to do without any partners?" Takehiro said, trying to be a voice of reason beyond his son's and wife's shouting. All the while, the group of adults was advancing towards their children, although their pace and stride was slow and extremely cautious, like a police officer approaching a gunman.

Takato looked quite nervously towards Rika and Henry for a moment, before trying to put his façade of confidence back on his face. "W-We'll survive…we'll wing it. We always do."

Henry felt like slapping himself in the forehead. After running away from home, shouting at one's parents and planning to go to a highly dangerous world, saying that your plan was to 'wing it', and not even lessening the blow by dancing around the point or sounding confident, was an extremely idiotic thing to do. The blue-haired boy felt torn between the two sides, wanting to go to the Digital World under the terms he and his dad had agreed (involving parents agreeing to it) but knowing that he himself wanted to go regardless of what they thought. He had to see Terriermon again. And he didn't want this tense stand-off to be the end of that dream.

Hearing movement, he turned, to his surprise seeing Rika holding a bulging rucksack over the portal while another one now sat on her shoulders.

It was a moment before the penny dropped for Takato, and he realised that the bulging bag before him was _his_ bulging bag.

Unfortunately, it took only that moment for it to be dropped, and his hand leapt out too late. "You coming?" Rika said confrontationally, feeling plenty of pangs of guilt rising in her heart as the static flared up briefly, the bag absorbed by the otherworldly portal.

"What the hell did you do that for?" said Takato, his hands flailing wildly in surprise.

"Are you coming _with_ or _not_?"

"Rika, I don't want to lose you!" called out her mother, now standing near enough the doorway to see almost everything. All of the parents were now close enough to watch, but seemed to still fear approaching any further.

Rika was already riled up enough from her guilt and anger about what she had just done, which in itself was her attempt to escape from a rabbit-caught-in-headlights situation. And so, she turned, and spat out what she wanted to say to her mother since that evening before, and, perhaps, even before then.

"You've already _lost_ me! I _hate you_! Maybe if you'd taken some time to understand me, to actually be a mother, you might have avoided that, but no, your career and your future was far more important. This is _my future_ Mom, and you're not stopping me getting it!" In spite of her attempts to show contempt and force, tears still threatened to push their way onto her eyes.

With a hiss, she dismissed them, and turned, straight past Takato and Henry (the former now understanding precisely where her earlier mood had come from), and to the hole in the floor. She practically leapt down like the bag before her, the sound of dirt scattered at the bottom followed soon after by a far louder sound of static.

And to Rumiko, watching, that sound was followed by an even louder and more unbearable sound.

Silence.

"I'll bring her back. I promise." Takato's fists were clenched, as he had yet another of those moments he would look back on in the future as 'promising too much for his own good'. Rumiko fell into her mother's arms, bawling her eyes out, leaving Takato's promise to fall to her own mother.

"Be careful," Seiko said, knowing that she didn't want the guilt of losing him too in getting her granddaughter back (and hopefully bringing her daughter and granddaughter to some resolution).

The boy's eyes scanned across to his parents, pleading with them to go too. His mother went to open her mouth, but his father promptly put his hand on her shoulder, and spoke louder. "Do us proud."

Mie looked surprised up to her husband, then somewhat tearful, before she looked into the boy's eyes. "Just be careful Takato,"

"Thanks," Takato said, addressing his father in particular. "I won't let you down."

He turned to Henry, the boy clutching a rucksack on his shoulder, and reminding the Gogglehead that thanks to Rika he now had very little choice about going to the Digital World or not anyway.

"Let's go."

And, with a spout of dirt, and a static glitch, the boy was gone.

Henry looked down into the hole as it 'gobbled up' his friend, turning to look at his father. "I'll be careful Dad. You can trust me," he said, knowing how empty his promises really were. He had no idea what would happen, or what to expect.

But his father still nodded. At least someone trusted him. "I do."

"Tell Suzie that I'm sorry she couldn't come with – I know she'll find out," he began, before putting out a finger. "But don't let the other Tamers know…any of you!" he said, spreading his gaze to the whole group of adults. "They might risk coming with, and we need to keep small and safe as a group."

"What do we say if they ask?" Seiko questioned, her arm round her distraught daughter (half-restraining her from following her own daughter into the portal).

"Wait up!" called a new voice, before Henry could reply (that they'd have to make something up, and that his time was rather pressing in this instant). Instead, his attention was drawn past the adults to a boy about his age running towards them, followed by a taller blonde man, clutching a bag.

"Ryo?" he asked, before a closer analysis confirmed it. Of all the Tamers he'd expected to turn up (and he was surprised that Kazu or someone _hadn't _done so yet), Ryo was definitely at the bottom of the list. He was far too far away, and, to his knowledge, no-one had called him.

"Looks like I got here just in time. Where are Takato and Rika?"

Henry hesitated, glancing to Rumiko, no longer crying but still looking very worried. "They've already gone through."

"Oh. Did I miss something?"

"I'll explain later," Henry said, although he doubted that he could. What _was _going on? Even after watching and listening, all he could truly ascertain was that Rika was angry at her mother. He was feeling thoroughly knocked-for-six by this morning so far. Glancing to the portal, he knew it would only get worse.

Before he could head into it, however, the blonde man caught up with his younger companion. "I had something for you all," Yamaki said, before noticing Takato and Rika were absent. "But looks like it's just you two who are still here," he frowned, opening up his bag and taking out a pair of PDAs, expanded with an extra antenna at the top. "They're D-Navs…I mean, Digital Navigators. Sorry, Riley came up with the nickname." He hated nicknames. But Riley, on the other hand…

"D-Navs, got it, thanks," Ryo said, grasping one while Henry took the other, peering over it.

"Thanks. What do they do?" Henry asked the head of Hypnos.

"I've upgraded two of my PDAs to be able to better communicate in the Digital World than the one I gave Takato before, or, at least, that's the theory. I would've made ones for all of you, but time was a factor." His voice certainly didn't hesitate to demonstrate his distaste for the hurry. "When you need to get home, call us on these things and we'll send the Ark programme. In case they don't work, we'll send the Ark down at midday in three days' time – it should land where it did before but we can't be sure of that. You will have to be on-board if that happens – we have no way of knowing if you're there or not without you sending us a message."

"Thanks." Henry pocketed the device and the information, before turning to the portal, noticing the bag on his friend's back. He had so many questions he wanted to ask, but they would have to wait. "Ready?" Besides, it would definitely help to have someone with them who knew the Digital World pretty well.

"I was ready all the way here, now I'm just getting anxious. Let's hope this works," Ryo replied, wandering forward, and, after a brief glance back, leaping down.

Dust and static. Gone.

Henry took a longer glance back, nodding to his father, before he took the fateful walk forward. This was worse than any fear of any test, any fear of any Digimon battle, any fear of falling. They were going alone to a visceral world where they could very well be chopped limb from limb the moment they landed. This was crazy. It was suicidal.

"_Momentai."_

He fell down, into the pit, into the dust, and into the blurred ball of static, his last thoughts rendered into nothing by the embrace.

"_What are we getting oursel…?"_

**TO BE CONTINUED…**

* * *

And here we are at the end of Chapter 2 of the original, and I hope you've enjoyed all the improvements I've made. Meanwhile, I'd like to let you know about a new forum I've set up here on this website, accessible via my profile. It's called The Writer's Corner for Digimon, and is intended for two things. Firstly, it will allow anyone who has an idea that they can't/don't want to use (a plot bunny) leave their idea for 'adoption' by another writer. I've had a lot of these in the past, and it always seems like a shame to let them go to waste. Secondly, it will be for discussion of Digimon writing in general (and any other writing if you feel like it), both from a writer and a reader's point of view. I hope it gets popular, but so long as it provides a place to drop off any random ideas I have (but can't use – I have a lot of them), it'll serve its purpose, and I hope others do the same. It is co-moderated by Crazyeight and I, so at least it has one pair of capable hands managing it. Hint: they're not mine, heh.

**If you'd like to read on without waiting for the rewrite, start from Chapter 3 of the original book one.**

Until next time…

B.C.


	8. The World Without You

**DISCLAIMER: I don't own Digimon, but I do own the original characters introduced in this story and my other stories (except where stated otherwise here or elsewhere by myself).**

**A/N: **Thanks to Crazyeight for beta reading.

* * *

**DIMENSIONS**

_**BOOK ONE**_

_Links_

**Rewrite**

By Blazing Chaos

* * *

**CHAPTER EIGHT**

_The World Without You_

* * *

**THURSDAY, 15****TH**** NOVEMBER 2007**

* * *

_**Shinjuku Junior High School, Shinjuku Ward **_

_**08:35 JST**_

"Katou Jeri."

"Here."

"Kitagawa Kenta."

"Here."

Takato was late again. Later than usual, in fact – he would normally sweep into the room just as the register began. Jeri glanced to his desk, the boy having the good fortune of having one by the window this term (although Ms. Asagi had told him that if he was caught staring out of it one too many times he would be moved to somewhere less dream-worthy). Or, at least, he should've had. Still, he would have to turn up sooner or later – the Matsuki whirlwind was surprisingly rarely absent. Only late.

"Matsuki Takato."

Silence.

"Late again," Nami Asagi said dismissively, shaking her head in disdain, but thought nothing more of it yet.

* * *

_**Seminar Room 29, Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building**_

_**09:29 JST**_

In the end, the meeting, in spite of being such a small group, had taken a relatively long while to start for an 'emergency meeting'. Riley and Tally had been monitoring the network for a spike when the Tamers were 'transmitted' to the Digital World, but failed to get as impressive a reading as they were hoping for, and couldn't be sure they hadn't just seen someone use a toaster in the vicinity. Indeed, Riley had asked Yamaki over the phone whether the Tamers had gone at all. They hadn't even been sure if they had been looking at the right frequencies for the right signals, or even in the right place, and several of the Monster Makers were now resisting the urge to immediately research this anomaly. The scaffolding still embracing significant portions of the building and resulting in long diversions around D-Reaper damaged areas did not make life any easier.

The parents were distracted by their own matters, although rather more emotionally based than embedded in the world of geekdom. Seiko and her daughter, still in her elaborate dress, had talked outside in the hallway, while Janyu was forced to listen to Mie's worried ramblings about her son, guilt for his involvement fighting boredom from repetition for the most prominent emotion on his mind. Mie had a particularly angry note to say about Rika's actions, both dropping his bag into the portal and leaping in herself, seeing them as leaving her son with no option but to go with. The woman's husband, all the while, spread his time between softening Mie's more angered moments and his own internal debate about the choice they, or their children, had made.

Alas, they all knew they couldn't have done anything about it.

Yamaki cleared his throat – twice, in the end, to call the attentions of all around the large table, luxurious seats facing onto individual screens while a larger projection filled the whole of the end wall. Both were perfect for everything from damage visualisation to looking at the financial charts in the always-eventful meetings with the Treasury. In the past, these meetings had been conveniently delayed by a bioemergence, giving Yamaki a strong case to gain more funding, all up until a meeting two weeks prior when, looking at the dramatic drop-off in bioemergences since the D-Reaper (to zero, in fact), a Treasury official had concluded, in their typically short term manner, that the funding could be cut as it was clear that 'the Digital threat has subsided'. This was in spite of clear evidence that the digital border would not necessarily stay silent for long, and the knowledge that the Digital World had sustained many casualties against the D-Reaper itself. Evaluating the extent of its recovery was as much a reason to allow the Tamers to go as to get their partners back (since, Yamaki had to admit, should the border flare up again with activity, they would be left with no true defence against bioemergences).

Still, having to send them so abruptly, without the time for proper tests, had left Yamaki with a constant nervousness, and the lack of any signal they had safely made the digital transit only served to amplify it.

"This emergency meeting is now in order. Riley and Tally have been monitoring the readings," he said, gesturing in the pair's direction.

Riley nodded. "We still cannot confirm for certain whether they have arrived on the surface of the Digital World or not. The damage and disruption from the D-Reaper means that our scanners and tracers are not as fully-powered as we want, and the Digital World itself has seen significant changes to its structure."

"So you're saying it's like trying to decrypt a cipher with only half the key?" Shibumi asked, his words going right over the head of half the room. The Monster Makers, all currently in Tokyo while they worked on rebuilding Hypnos, were lined up alongside one side of the table and the parents and Hypnos technicians along the other, yet the long room looked almost completely empty. This was not a place for intimacy.

"Exactly," Tally answered. "We can send data there fine, but it's going to take a while to reconfigure our systems. There's nothing physically _stopping_ us from sending something down, or from receiving anything back, but we're flying half-blind."

"So you don't know where our children are?" Takehiro translated, knowing that his wife was probably fighting the urge for hysterics at the fact that the 'experts' weren't quite as expert as they thought.

"Not…completely," Yamaki erred, trying to avoid making the room too emotionally charged, even if this meeting, simply by way of having fewer parents in it, was already better than the last time the children had gone to the Digital World. The Tamers' parents cared a lot for their children, and it was obviously good to see, but emotions, as clichéd as the concept was, could often rather get in the way of a successful operation. Then again, he knew he was a hypocrite to complain: his anger had clouded his judgement only a few months before, unleashing Juggernaut on the world and leaving it too late to realise the worth of the Tamers as a weapon against digital forces.

Riley, seeing his distress, took the baton from him voluntarily. "They have two upgraded PDAs we can use to locate and contact them – we call them D-Navs."

Yamaki mentally cursed the nickname. What was with the insistence among people nowadays in shortening everything? "Yes, and while our ability to contact them last time was jeopardised by the scrambling effects of the Digital World, the upgrades should…" _"…hopefully…" _"…mean that we can keep in constant contact with them."

"That would be nice, Mr Mitsuo," Seiko said, frowning. "But if you were already in contact with them, would we not have heard about that by now?"

Yamaki frowned, cursing the woman's deductive mind. "I'm afraid so," he said calmly, while his mind hotly debated what on Earth…or rather, Digital World…had happened. _"Nothing is ever easy."_

* * *

_**Shinjuku Junior High School, Shinjuku Ward**_

_**11:00 JST**_

"So you didn't see Takato this morning at all?"

"Hey, I thought he was just avoiding another slaughter at the card game. You'd think the guy would've learnt some new tricks as a Tamer, wouldn't you?"

Jeri resisted the urge to groan at Kazu's constant competitiveness. In fact, it wasn't even competitiveness – Kazu appeared certain he would win in any circumstance regardless of the facts. As Kenta had informed her more privately, during the battle against the D-Reaper, the relative weakness of his partner had dented Kazu's spirits a great deal, although he saw the best of it in that he could support his friends who were able to literally dive straight into the belly of the beast. Beating Takato at cards was probably just his way of asserting some form of dominance.

"_Boys," _she thought, in a tone far more associated with her friend Ayaka, who, in spite of puberty's rapid onset onto their gender, as yet failed to see the purpose of the unfairer sex beyond being an annoyance in everything they did.

"He's probably just ill. Wonder if I can go over and catch it from him…can't believe Mrs Asagi only told us about that test today," Kenta complained, Kazu nodding in agreement.

"We'll have one of those 'pox parties'."

The prospect of the three of them having rabid man flu was not an appealing one for Jeri, particularly considering the fact that Kazu constantly seemed to be dying of something regardless of having no actual reason to complain. She glanced around their classroom, all of the pre- and ad-teens tucking into the unhealthiest of morning break snacks while Mrs Asagi tucked into an aspirin, clearly still stressed from the class' reaction to the news. Takato's desk was conspicuously empty still, and Mrs Asagi hadn't said anything about the outcome of her inevitable phone call to ascertain the whereabouts of the begoggled boy. _"I wonder if Henry knows."_ It was no secret that Takato was probably more likely to tell his blue-haired friend something than his older friends, Kazu and Kenta, as much as those two would probably refute that fact.

"You want whatever Takato's got Jeri?" asked Kenta, bringing her attention back to the conversation – if it could be called one – at hand.

"Huh? Oh, no, definitely not, I hate being ill."

"Your loss," Kazu shrugged.

"I'm...going to go find Henry," the brunette said, making her decision mid-sentence on whether or not to go for certain. Something nagged her, and she wasn't entirely sure why. In her years of knowing the boy, Takato had not hit her as someone to be ill too often. Besides, it was a perfect way to get away from the boys' planning before she ended up as a witness in the headmaster's court.

"Want us to come wi…?"

"No," Jeri said, a little too quickly in retrospect. "He said he'd go over a question with me on the Maths homework that I didn't get."

"Oh, was it number 12? 29? 48?" Kenta sighed. "Oh, who am I kidding, I don't think I got any of it right."

"Maths homework?" the visor-wearing boy wondered, before he put on his best impression of turning a street corner to find a Mammothmon's trunk. "Oop."

* * *

_**Nonaka Residence, Shinjuku Ward**_

_**11:29 JST**_

"I'm sorry, but I really can't come. Yes, I know how amazing this would be, and I'd love to but…" Rumiko said, glancing over her shoulder to her mother sitting on the couch, cradling a cup of tea and a worried expression. "My daughter's sick, and I've got to look after her. But please let me know if something comes up in the future, okay? Bye."

She hung the phone up, knowing there was near to no chance she would grace the pages of _Eye_ magazine now. This industry was one you had to grab on for dear life onto, or you'd be flung aside like yesterday's dresses. As much as she wanted to mourn the loss, she knew that she had to do it. "That's not the phone call I wanted to have."

Seiko looked outraged. "Rumiko, your daughter is far more important than…"

"Let me finish mom." The blonde felt like a child again. "I wanted to hear from Hypnos," she added, glancing to the panels nearby. If there was one disadvantage of living in such a traditional, luxurious home, it was the rarity of a decent sized window to peer out, something made more irritating in the winter months when the pouring rain and cold so often made the balconies an unattractive proposition. "I wanted to hear that she was back, or that they'd at least found where she is." Her voice sidled on the edge of tears, not for the first time that day.

The Monster Makers had stayed at Hypnos to work on contacting the Tamers and their 'pet project', as Shibumi had put it, while Rumiko had had the feeling that she and the other parents (besides Janyu, naturally) had been promptly shunted out of the way for the time being with the promise of a phone call as an update. So, all they could do was play the waiting game for now.

"I trust that Yamaki will find them."

"But what if it's too late? What if she gets killed by something first?" Rumiko looked ready to bash her head into the nearby fridge as her finely cut nails pushed into her palms. "And then the last thing I'll remember of her is her saying she hates me. Does she really hate me mom?"

Seiko frowned, not answering the question directly. "You two will need to talk when she gets back. I thought you two promised to make more time for each other."

"I know, I know," the model repeated, wandering over to sit next to the woman on the western-style couch. "But doing what? We don't share anything in common." Since the D-Reaper battle had ended and the constant threat of loss had subsided, the feeling of need to see each other had too shrunk in the minds of mother and daughter, or, at least, that was her perception of things. Work had provided a convenient distraction, particularly with all the publicity of being the mother of a Tamer allowing her to take her pick of modelling jobs in the first two weeks (a remarkable thing in a world where a dozen trends would pass before lunch). Once that work had dried up, everything had seemed to return to normal, even in spite of her and her daughter's once good intentions, and unsurprisingly today's argument had thrown everything back into the forefront of her mind.

Her mother had heard similar things before from both of them, and as yet she lacked an answer. Brief forays of Rika into dresses and of Rumiko into the details of Digimon and the card game had been little more than failed experiments, never to be repeated. "You will have to work that out."

* * *

_**Matsuki Family Bakery, Shinjuku Ward**_

_**15:40 JST**_

Ordinary bread just didn't seem normal after a lifetime of saved lunch money pastries and rolls from this place, certainly not compared to the now-famed 'Guilmon bread' the store made. The good service and warm ambience made such a small-time place draw crowds from all over the city, but the majority of its sales still went to its immediate surroundings. And Jeri suspected that, once the humdrum surrounding Digimon died down, so too might those extra sales. It hadn't hurt her tavern either, even when a family of American customers made a complaint about one of the regulars and his (usual) drunken state. At midday.

Smiling a cheery smile, Jeri grasped the 'Guilmon bread' in her hands, looking over the counter to Takato's mother as she dropped the change into the till. As much as Takato would've liked to have secured a discount rate for his friends (and, in particular, Jeri herself, or so she speculated), Jeri knew that such was rather unlikely. The woman ran a tight ship.

Still…the captain didn't look entirely happy or certain today, and her usual real pleasure to see the brunette was lacking. So too, indeed, was the reality behind Jeri's smile, more so than usual, for her concern about Takato had been elevated all too much by another fact she had discovered.

Henry was absent too.

Kazu and Kenta had thought nothing of it, as much as she tried to paint it as something fishy. They simply commented about how they could make a larger pox party, and maybe even get some cash out of it (with them, obviously, taking the larger share), before Mrs Asagi had informed them that, should they be ill the next day, they would be in detention for the next month.

And so, without the prospect of man flu to catch (and Kazu's dismissal of Takato's 'flu' as real compared to his ghastly episodes), Jeri had made the trip alone to the bakery to answer her curiosity. "Is Takato okay? He wasn't in school today."

Mie uneasily glanced to her husband, kneading dough, as she fed the line she had devised far prior to this meeting. "His cousin fell ill, and he volunteered to look after him while his uncle went to work. We couldn't close down the bakery.

"Oh, Kai?"

"No, his other cousin. Personally, I think he looks for any excuse to get out of school."

Jeri wished she knew rather more about Takato's family. She had the sense she was being sold a pup, but even if she knew the facts, she knew it would be too rude to highlight them, and she had no way of finding out anyway. Still…something bugged her, even if this were true, and that was Henry.

She said her goodbyes, and left the bakery, trying to remember where the blue-haired boy lived. Unlike the bakery, she had never been there, and, indeed, were it not for him becoming a Tamer, she doubted she would ever have gotten to know him. Glancing to her watch, she wondered if she would be able to find his address or number at home, but also knew that it would be a rather fruitless exercise: her shift started at four, and she had gone the completely wrong direction home from school to visit the bakery.

Hopefully, one of the pair would be in tomorrow to sedate her worries. She didn't like the coincidence. Still, they couldn't have gone too far, could they?

* * *

_**Wong Residence, Shinjuku Ward**_

_**20:29 JST**_

"I'm home," the man called out to the household in a tired voice, putting his coat on a hook on the wall and looking into the flat. Suzie and Jaarin watched television, while their mother sat nearby, reading. It was something she always did when she was nervous, and Janyu always believed it to be a form of escapism from their problems, even if he would never say it for fear of an argument.

The bespectacled woman stood up, heading across to him with an inquiring expression. "Any news?"

"We've managed to locate the D-Navs, but they are moving unusually fast, so we're not sure if our systems are working right. We haven't managed to get a message through yet."

"Bad news then."

"It's a matter of when, not if Mayumi."

"I hope you're right. I called Rinchei to let him know about his brother. But Suzie here doesn't seem to understand why we can't tell anyone."

"Wasn't it obvious?"

"I don't know either. If I did, I'd have explained it to her."

"Why do we have to keep it a secwet?" Suzie, now on her feet, looked up to her father. With Jaarin just below his height, Rinchei well above it and Henry catching up fast, she was the only one he still genuinely looked down to talk to any more.

He smiled as he talked to his youngest daughter. "Henry, Takato and Rika wanted to keep it a surprise for the rest of the Tamers. I think you'd be worried if you noticed that Henry was gone, so I obviously had to tell you, but if anyone asks, he's had to go to his cousin's wedding back in China, okay?"

"But we don't have any cousins in China."

"I know Suzie, but just pretend we do, okay?"

"Oh, okay." She didn't seem to entirely understand it, but for now it seemed worth simply leaving that point. "When will Henwy be back?"

"_I wish I knew."_ "Soon Suzie, soon. We've got the whole of Hypnos working on it."

"And then I'll have Lopmon again?"

"…hopefully."

To her, this clearly meant 'definitely'. "Yay! And we'll play Pwincess Pwetty Pants the moment she gets back. And I'll get her a new dwess to celebwate!"

Janyu patted his daughter on the head. The optimism of youth was something he rather wished could be bottled right now. His son, and three of the boy's friends, were somewhere out there on another world out of reach of contact (for the time being), and with the most visceral and horrible dangers in existence lurking at every turn. Optimism would be a rather useful thing in this exceptional circumstance (yet one which had occurred once before).

"If you keep it a secret, we'll buy one as a reward."

"Yay!" Suzie exclaimed, and went off, cheering about all the various facets of the dress she knew she would buy (even if it was not available in stores). Glancing to his other daughter (worry conveyed in a single glance), Janyu fell into his seat, while his wife returned to reading again.

The rush of the past 24 hours for the first time subsiding, he found himself with a chance to take things in, and he found himself coming back to one simple wish, his fingers unconsciously crossing at his side.

"_Keep safe Henry…we'll find you. I hope."_

**TO BE CONTINUED…**

* * *

A new chapter (of sorts) for this Book. I felt like we didn't look enough at the real world events in the original, and this is my way of making up for it. In any case, I hope you enjoyed reading it, and have appreciated my recent focus on the rewrite.

Ah, and also, as has been drawn to my attention by my beta reader (and god only knows how neither of us noticed), 'Janyuu' is spelt wrong – it should be 'Janyu'. As a result, I've corrected it in this chapter, and will do from this point forward. If I remember. And yes, that means that after two hundred or so Dimensions chapters total, I still didn't notice that it didn't quite line up with the Monster Makers page on Digimon Wiki (which I use quite often to check sources). Feel free to review-slap me, hehe.

**If you want to continue reading from here, go to Chapter 3 of the original Book One. Also, you may find that Jeri goes to the bakery again in a later chapter. Apologies for the lack of lining-up, but I felt there were some scenes that had to be featured earlier in this version.**

Until next time,

B.C.


	9. The Reformatted Digital World

**DISCLAIMER: I don't own Digimon, but I do own the original characters introduced in this story and my other stories (except where stated otherwise here or elsewhere by myself).**

**A/N: **Thanks to Crazyeight for beta reading.

* * *

**DIMENSIONS**

_**BOOK ONE**_

_Links_

**Rewrite**

By Blazing Chaos

* * *

**CHAPTER NINE**

_The Reformatted Digital World_

* * *

**WEDNESDAY, 14****TH**** NOVEMBER 2007**

* * *

_**DIGITAL PLANE**_

_**23:29 UTC**_

The Digital Plane was not the sort of place that made sense. Random things came and went all the time, from the revolving clocks occasionally punctuating the background to the random numbers. A human was still a rare sight though, and the Goggles on its head were hardly the in-thing in Digital Plane fashion.

"Took you long enough," snapped a redhead, standing (although what on she didn't want to consider) nearby and clutching a rucksack in her hands, which she unceremoniously tossed across to him over a fair distance. In reality, the shot was an unlikely one unless you were well-trained in the art of throwing, but the physics of this world made the bag simply seem to drift towards him instead. Unlike true weightlessness, however, it seemed to speed up and slow down as it saw fit, and it soon occurred to Takato that the 'floor' Rika was standing on was at a bizarrely different angle to his.

"Thanks," he said, clasping the bag and securely putting it on his back, making sure the zips were tied. He didn't want another bread-falling incident. "So…do you want to talk?"

Rika's eyes were closed, and she tapped her foot on nothing in a repetitive pattern. "What's keeping Henry?"

"'cause, well, it seemed that…"

"Tak…Gogglehead, what's more important right now?"

"Huh? More important than what?"

"Having your sappy conversation about, oh, I'm so harsh on my mother, or working out what we're going to do next?"

"I just thought we had some time on our hands and…"

There was a large gurgling noise from behind Rika, rather like a toaster being dropped into a washing machine. "And now we don't," she said with no lack of satisfaction, before she turned, her pleasure at not having to have the conversation she dreaded right now being unfortunately short lived.

For there, in front of her, was someone she didn't quite expect.

"What the hell are you doing here?"

Ryo smiled his annoyingly perfect and unaffected smile, one that seemed unlikely to originate anywhere other than an American high school show. "Nice to see you too Princess. Although you're upside down."

A lightning storm in a bubble bath managed to overpower Rika's gargling, as Henry shot out from below, his feet barely missing Takato's whole body (thanks to a just-in-time step back) before he settled on a position above.

"I forgot what that felt like," he said, regretting the reliving of those memories as he looked around, seeing his companions all around him, all standing on slightly different planes.

"Great, everyone's here!"

"Everyone plus one," Rika said, arms crossed and eyes demanding an answer. "Before we get down there, I want to know…"

It was too late, and the redhead's eyes widened as gravity finally settled on where it was. And so began the headfirst fall of Ryo, the sky-diver fall of Henry, the frightened fall of Takato and the seemingly disaffected and really quite angry fall of Rika, the ambiguity and nonsense of the Digital Plane giving way to the increasing certainty of the rather solid land of the Digital World surface below.

But first came a variety of circuit boards. Takato instinctively went into the foetal position as he smashed into them. Some felt like falling through feathers, but while passing through a particularly nasty 'concrete' one, he remembered in the nick of time to grab tightly onto his bag so that the Digital World wouldn't suffer from the occasional bread shower for the next millennia.

And then, after the circuit boards, came the welcome relief and certainty of the Digital World's desert below, for which Takato clenched his eyes shut.

* * *

_**DIGITAL WORLD**_

_**Desert Level**_

_**23:31 UTC**_

It was not until after it literally hit Takato, of course, that he remembered how that certainty felt. The sound was cacophonous, but fizzled out in the world around them, echoes completely lacking in its vast expanse, dimly lit, even at its current night, by an unseen (and extremely bright) moon.

Still, something about the landing felt slightly different. Was the sand originally this lumpy below? And he didn't remember a rock landing on his back before – particularly not such an oddly-shaped one, one which took all the wind out of him as it delivered a powerful blow to his spine and pushed him further into the rock below.

As a result, his wail when the rock below him began to move was minimal.

"Takato. Get off my arse."

Although that voice implicitly promised the worst punishments conceivable if its demands were not met, the noise of apology and objection still couldn't be brought to the wheezing boy's lips, and his arms would not budge under the weight of the rock above him. So he was eternally thankful when that same rock started talking and defended his case.

"Sorry, it's my fault he can't breathe or move," Henry pushed himself away, the weight on Takato's back lifting but the pain not entirely easing. As quickly as he could with his aching mid section, he went to push himself up, but repositioned his hands when he realised what he would've used to do so. After he rolled aside, Rika got on her knees and stood up over him. She shot him a hateful look past red cheeks (through pain, embarrassment or just sheer anger, he couldn't be certain), clambering out the side of the crater the three of them had made.

Ryo, looking down from above, whistled his appreciation. "That's one deep hole you've dug yourselves."

"_If only he knew," _Takato thought, but he was too busy trying his utmost to breathe and climb out himself (Henry eventually seeing his distress and giving him some assistance) to voice the notion. Not that he would've. Rika still didn't know what he knew, and none of them really knew what Rika knew about the thing with Rumiko. Circles within circles within squares. When did things get so complicated again all of a sudden?

Rika didn't seem ready to laugh. "Cut the jokes. What are you doing here?"

"Your grandma called me and told me you guys were going at 08:30," Ryo answered. Rika knew he was lying, even if there was no essence of that in his delivery. The story didn't make any sense.

"Oh really, because I expressly remember us planning not to bring anyone else." The boy lived in Kyushu, after all, and there was no way he could've made it after Rika ran away from home. And why would her grandma have called for Ryo in that case anyway? Something just didn't add up here. "So why are you _really_ here?"

"Hey, I told you."

"_I don't remember her making a phone call."_ "I don't believe you."

"Why would I lie? And for that matter, what happened to trusting me? Last time we met, Princess, you trusted me so far as to give me all your power. What happened to change that?"

"It didn't work. It took Lancelot here glowing like a flashlight and Typhoon Rabbit to finally cram that thing. And never call me Princess."

"Okay, can we please not have an argument?" Takato laughed sheepishly. Intervening in any of Rika's arguments was hard enough: intervening in one with Ryo could only come with a death wish.

"Shut up Gogglehead, this is nothing to do with you."

"Well, it's just, two seconds ago you were sort of talking about being practical and…"

"Yes, and now we have time to talk. What's your point?"

"A very good one," Henry interjected, gesturing outwards. "This place looks even more dangerous than the last time."

The desert, like always, stretched off in all directions, with no clear indication as to which was the best way out of there. Rocks punctuated the area, from a rather large one nearby to the array of dish-like ones in the far distance, while the Earth orb above dropped pink beams onto the surface below like a hundred flashlights. Rather useful, in fact, given the darkness (even if it never got too dark here).

But even without the light, Henry could tell that that nearby rock couldn't possibly balance with the way it stood now. Its base had been perfectly eroded away, leaving its huge mass pivoted on a relatively small point at one side. It should've collapsed ages ago. And, upon closer inspection, some of those 'dishes' hung bizarrely in the air. Indeed, even the gradient of the desert had changed, erratic slopes added to its relative flatness.

"Did…did the D-Reaper do this?" Ryo asked.

"That or Guilmon's hunger," Henry quipped, his voice full of wonder at the world around him, almost as much as he'd had last time. The place simply didn't seem possible, from its different sky to the fact that one would expect to have dust and sand all over one's clothes after a crash _that_ bad.

Rika looked indignant. "I thought we were being serious here."

"We need to find him." Takato's voice rang with determination as the pain in his torso subsided. He wasn't sure the same could be said for his relationship with Rika, which seemed to have been eroded just like those rocks in the past ten minutes or so.

Henry nodded. "We're like sitting ducks until we find any of them."

"I can't see any Digimon," Ryo said, habitually putting his hand above his eyes even though he knew there was no sun to glare into them.

"Don't forget, this place looked empty last time before those Jagamon descended." The blue-haired boy could barely believe that was only a few months ago. So much had happened since.

Ryo shook his head. "I wasn't with you guys then."

"Oh, right, I forgot, sorry. How did you get here anyhow?"

"It's a long story, and I think we have bigger things to focus on right now. What's the plan Takato? You're the one with the Goggles."

"Yes, because that's an excellent qualification for a leader," Rika said sardonically. Her argument with, well, almost everyone she had spoken to in the past few moments, had left her with a rather low tolerance for idiocy – lower even than normal.

"Well, I think we should head to those antenna rocks over there. We might find our way from there," Takato gestured in a direction, the rocks in the distance scarred by the D-Reaper's effects.

"_That's strange," _Henry scratched his head, turning his head around to look in the other direction. "What, you mean like those antennas that way?"

Takato nodded, smiling, and turned his head. "Yeah, like those antenna…wait, what?"

Sure enough, in the almost exact opposite direction to the dishes that the Gogglehead had been looking at, another set stood, with slightly different scars. This wasn't simply a reflection. It was the real deal. And it left them with only one explanation.

"This isn't the same place as last time, is it?" Takato sighed, cramming a hand into his forehead, his fingernails tapping onto his Goggles. "Why can't anything ever be simple?"

"I wouldn't be so quick to judge," Ryo said, bending down on one knee to inspect the ground. He peered out and around, Henry's attention drawn to the same factor. "Look at these dents in the ground."

"Wait, are these what I think they are?" Henry wondered, taking a step back and counting. While some of the dents were deeper than others, and some were slightly merged into one, there were unmistakably the same number as the number from last time: the number of Tamers who had crashed. Indeed, as Rika curiously kicked the sand, it slipped down slightly, a trickle dropping into the fresh craters nearby.

"We might want to move," she noted, a general unease building in the pit of her stomach.

"Agreed," Henry said, before the rumble from the surface below brought the reality to their attention. The four, in the order that it occurred to them exactly what was going on, leapt aside in a variety of directions, thankfully landing just before the ground caved in behind them into a pit.

Takato was the first to stand up, putting on his goggles to see through the dust cloud, which still failed to deposit itself on any of their clothes. "This is definitely Guilmon's crater," he noted.

"Of course it is, no-one else would make a crater that big," Rika said, standing up and wandering over herself as the mist settled.

"No, I mean, look," the Gogglehead said, amusement coming to the forefront of his voice. "Bread! Shaped like Guilmon's head!" he said in a singsong voice. "I always wondered where that went."

Rika delivered him a swift backhand to the back of his head, covering up his brief 'ouch' with a "moron."

"Okay, so if we're in the same place," Henry wondered, standing up and gazing around. "Then the world's changed."

"Here was me hoping I could navigate," Ryo sighed, Rika barely containing her urge to jab him for his attempt at know-it-all-ness. "Sorry guys."

"Well, now that Mr Perfect has failed, does anyone else have any proper ideas?" Rika gave up containing it.

"Maybe these things can help?" Henry suggested, lifting up his D-Arc to his face. As a group, they collectively went to their devices, and frowned at the fuzzy compass appearing on all of them, spinning wildly and not looking like it was planning to stop any time soon. Henry hoped it was just because they were too far away to find Terriermon and the others. If the D-Arc wouldn't show them at all, or…if the worst had happened… _"Please be okay…"_

"Useless." Rika hissed, returning the object to her belt, and disguising her worry for Renamon with irritation. "Any _decent_ ideas, anyone?"

"Pick a direction and walk?" Takato laughed sheepishly.

"I said any _decent_ ideas."

"Hey, I'm actually agreeing with Takato here," Henry said. Rika knew such an occurrence was far from rare. Even today, the pair often sided against her. No doubt Ryo would too. "Every option available to us is equal right now, so we won't lose out by taking one of them."

"That's stupid," Rika complained. "Renamon and the others have to be in one of these directions, so they're not all equal."

"Do you have any better ideas, or are you just going to keep criticising?" Ryo asked.

Rika huffed, not honouring it with a reply (even though she would admit he had a point), and picked the direction she was facing to begin walking in. "Come on then."

"Great!" Takato eventually said, looking after her and clasping his hands together, grinning with glee. "And while we're walking, we can have a nice long chat to catch up."

"This is not a road movie," Rika sighed, almost beneath her breath, before she realised it wasn't worth bothering with. Whatever she did, he would always be that stupidly nice and chatty and optimistic and thoughtful, even when their odds were so clearly so bad. Why did he have to be like that?Couldn't he just live in pessimism like the rest of them, or at least leave them to it? _"Stupid Takato."_ Her bad mood, attempting to self-perpetuate, ensured she stayed a good few feet in front of the others as they walked, lest she see any speck of optimism on their jaws and attempt to copy it.

"Sounds good," Ryo said, staying back a few seconds before he began to follow so he could address the one thing that was bugging him right now. "And I think I need one too. Seems like I've landed in the middle of it all. Literally. And so I have to ask the million dollar question…" His voice descended to a whisper. "What's got Rika so testy? More than usual."

Rika, hearing, pretended she hadn't.

"Well," Takato began, glancing ahead feeling that death would inevitably result if he said the wrong thing. "I think it's something going on with her mother and her," he continued, before he noticed that Rika's head started to move slightly. With the briefest of nervous laughs, he changed the way his words were heading. "Which is definitely none of our business and so we shouldn't talk about it."

Ryo grinned, miming a whip and its noise, before swiftly moving on. "So what's the story behind this portal then?"

"Well, yesterday when I was heading to Rika's h…I mean, heading to the shops to get something for the store," Takato quickly corrected himself. Rika had heard, and raised an eyebrow, but said nothing for the time being. "I went past the hideout and I heard this static noise…and…well, there it was."

"I'm surprised you were allowed to go. Although Yamaki did say something about wanting more time when I met him on the way from the station. To finish his preparations."

"Oh, that reminds me," Henry said, reaching into his pocket and pulling out the device he had received what now felt like a lifetime ago. It was hard to believe that this place, in essence, was so 'close' to Shinjuku Park. If the portal still existed, that was.

Ryo nodded, pulling out his own, before the blue-haired boy passed his to Takato. The boy looked over the improvised device curiously. "Yamaki called it a D-Nav, and gave us two of them. It's an upgraded version of the PDA from last time, and hopefully should work a bit better. We can use them to contact each other and home."

"Ah, awesome."

"'Should'," Ryo mimed finger quotes, showing his device to Henry. Rika, in front, stopped and peered back at the new development. "I'm getting no bars of signal."

"Fantastic, another success from Hypnos," Rika sighed, her bitter wit still reigning supreme in her attitude. "Do we have to wait for another storm? Again?" Not that she really wanted to hear from home, since the message from her mother would be inevitable. But she decided she wasn't going to leave that device in Takato's hands come message-time. Last thing she needed was another heart emoticon.

"Not necessarily. Last time they worked in a cave too." Henry's hand rested on his chin. "Not that I see any around here."

"I don't think you'd see much at all in this light," Ryo mused. The trio collectively sighed, but continued on walking through the dim world, the silence oddly unnerving after a while. Rika made her distance again, and after a moment of trying to keep up and simply making her walk faster, Takato got the message that she wasn't in the mood to talk about anything right now.

Takato chewed his lip, looking around curiously. It was good that there was no sign of any Digimon…or was it? Were they hidden? The dark probably helped. It took long enough last time to run into any Digimon, to be fair. But still, it was definitely not good that there was no sign of _their_ Digimon. The dark probably didn't help.

"What's up with the night anyhow? It was daytime back home," he asked.

"The Digital World is in a different time zone," Ryo explained.

Henry reached for his D-Nav. Its screen lacked a signal still (as much as the device desperately searched for one), it even lacked an accurate time (since it clearly wasn't **08:57**). Even upgraded, it wasn't perfect. In fact, it was so far from it. He returned it to his pocket, and instead unclipped his D-Arc.

"It's two minutes to midnight," he read.

"What's that, nine hours difference?" Ryo asked.

"Unix time," Henry surmised. "Makes sense. It's based around Coordinated Universal Time."

"Oh, right. Uh, why does that make sense?" Takato raised an eyebrow. Ryo wasn't too fazed. _"Am I the only one who doesn't get that here?"_

"Most servers and computers run on Unix Time, which is based around UTC, the time we work out all the time zones from. And we're in a world based on computers."

"I get it. Sunrise must be seven or eight or so hours away still."

"Yeah, I think. It's only just midnight…"

* * *

**THURSDAY, 15****TH**** NOVEMBER 2007**

* * *

"…now."

"Great. If we have to keep walking like this, I'm probably gonna fall asleep by the time we…"

It was at that moment that Takato flew through the air, and into the ground, making a rather alarmed noise like "aah" and then "oop", followed by an "oof."

Rika, hearing, slammed her hand into her forehead and turned round. "Oh for goodness sake Takato, do you have to _literally_ trip over your own feet?"

"Actually, looks more like a rail," Ryo corrected, wiping off a thin layer of sand from the top. Why it settled on there, and not at all on their clothes after their huge fall, he couldn't quite be sure. Even having been in this Digital World for longer than most, he still wasn't sure how this place worked. And the rail itself rather proved he knew even less than he thought. "I've never heard of a railway in the Digital World."

"So much for being a genius about this place," the redhead said in disbelief, for the first time in a while actually joining the rest of her group.

"So there might be a train then?" Takato said enthusiastically. If there was a train, they could get out of this desert. He didn't exactly imagine any of their partners would purposefully hang around this place anyway. It didn't look dangerous right now, but it could change instantly, as they had discovered before.

He mentally gulped. What if this train wasn't friendly?

"What sort of Digimon looks like a train though?" Henry asked, pondering his card collection and all the differing species he had heard of. He wasn't exactly an expert player of the game, but learning cards and strategies did appeal to his interests, not least since he had become so tightly involved in the world of Digimon that it often paid off quite highly. Still, he drew a blank. Maybe Rika or Ryo could know. He was surprised they hadn't…

"There's Locomon."

It wasn't, in fact, one voice, but two. Was it Rika and Ryo together? Digimon King and Queen for s…

"Hey, how did you know that?" Rika demanded from Takato, as Henry realised the source wasn't the undefeated 'Champion' of the card game tournaments at all. Rika, meanwhile, didn't quite expect Takato to know such a rare and unusual card, one of those in the game but not in the anime, the sort created by someone with no real control over the whole 'Digimon' affair (which had only been made trickier for the company producing it since they, well, had become real in a spectacular way).

"'cause there's Locomon right there." Takato stood with his hand and D-Arc out, holographic circle scanning with the name right above. It wasn't being too helpful, details scarce thanks to Takato's current lack of a partner (and hence lack of seeing that Digimon's eyes on his D-Arc), but it was good enough.

Sure enough, thundering towards them down the rails was a huge, anthropomorphic…train. But, far from the cheery, cartoonish designs of Ivor and Thomas, this locomotive was a hunk of black iron, a slouched, even depressed look emanating from eyes looking out through holes in its front. A thick trail of white smoke poured from its funnel and over its traditional wooden carriages, the kind so rarely seen beyond Japan's preserved railways, with open ends and balconies linking them together. If the thundering noise and the puffing of smoke didn't give one a clue, its roaring wheels would, regardless, let you know two things. A) This train was moving very fast. And, as a result, B) This train wasn't exactly going to be stopping any time soon.

And that was a problem.

"Do you think we could catch a lift?" Henry asked, the four mesmerised by the sight ahead of them.

"Catch a lift? With all that racket he's making, I don't think he could even hear us!" Rika rebutted. Even from this distance it was loud, while the vibrating rails more and more forced specks of sand to fly off them in all directions as time passed.

"Maybe we can catch his attention with something? Takato, I don't suppose there's any chance you brought the flag a…" Ryo began. And then stopped.

"That stupid thing might actually come in useful for…Takato? What the hell are you doing?"

In all this time, from noticing the tracks (by tripping up, naturally) to seeing the train to discussing how precisely they could stop it, Takato had barely moved, except to his feet. This wouldn't have been a problem…were he not standing slap bang in the middle of the railway tracks, perched on the edge of a sleeper.

"I'll stop him babe," Takato said, glancing back briefly to Rika. She barely moved at first, staring back into his eyes in disbelief. And a slight sense of…confusion. Confusion that she couldn't quite place.

The boy turned around, and began walking along the sleepers, then running. Towards the Locomon. In alarm, Henry began to run after him, shouting at him and asking what he was doing, but he paid no notice. He was focused, intently staring into the eyes of the Digimon, who stared back with all the concentration of a bored office worker, except the consequence of inattention here would be rather higher.

Running on the soft sand was hard, and Henry found himself tumbling to the ground, a soft landing nonetheless leaving him helplessly staring on at Takato running along the track ahead.

Locomon finally began to see what was going on, even his basic sight not failing him for once. Brakes screeched on fully, tearing along the rails.

"Finally. Stupid train, can't he tell I'm tired of walking?" Takato complained, finally stopping and crossing his arms. Even a car probably couldn't stop in this distance at the speed Locomon was travelling, and trains had a habit of being rather slower to stop. Still…that wouldn't be an issue, or, at least, Takato thought so, as he put his arms out in front, bracing himself against the menacing machine rapidly bearing down on him, whistle blazing out in horror.

Hearing a noise approaching him rapidly, he…turned. For this noise came not from the huge, hulking loco in front, but from behind.

A blur of white and blue rushed into him, screaming "GET DOWN!" before pushing him sharply aside.

Any further screams were inaudible over the roar of axle after axle behind them, lightening up once the locomotive himself had passed. Thankfully, both moron and saviour had just made it free, although the latter fearfully pulled her legs up, before her eyes were caught on the carriages now passing, still promising death even if they lacked the sheer weight and bulk of their predecessors.s

When the Doppler Effect finally came into play and the train had passed enough for its squealing brakes to not overwhelm their ears, Takato barely seemed fazed by the whole event. Indeed, his only irritation seemed to be with the redhead he was now lying under.

"I could easily have pushed him out the way you know?"

"WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU?" Rika screamed in his ear, her horrified curiosity overwhelming the knowledge in the back of her mind that she was currently practically laying on top of the boy, were it not for her outstretched arms planted on the ground acting as a support.

"Ouch. Sorry for calling you babes then…geez..."

A slap to the face immediately followed, and Rika found herself physically restraining herself from whacking him any harder. Just what the hell had just happened? What had come over him? He was almost dead! Henry and Ryo had fallen over in the sand trying to get to him, and she had only got any further by using the very same method as Takato had: the railway sleepers (coupled with an unexpected burst of speed).

"You must have a freaking death wish, you idiot!" She found herself holding back that horrible feeling of tears threatening to bloom on her face.

"Dear Goddramon, why are you always so aggressive?" Takato began to argue, before he was hit by a sudden burst of tiredness. "I thought that was my job. You…need to…mo…men…"

And he was gone, off into the land of nod, the determination in his eyes now covered by pinkish eyelids. Practically stabbing the mental voice that told her he somehow looked cute when sleeping, Rika shoved herself to her feet, turning and wiping a wrist across her face as she scowled. She stormed past Ryo, who had come to help, and headed straight for a now-stopped Locomon, Henry standing nearby with his pacifist face on.

The Locomon looked frenetic, his eyes wavering all over. "Oh…oh my god, you're the girl that threw yourself in front of him. Is he alright? I didn't kill someone, did I? Oh my god, oh my god, oh…"

"You owe us a lift."

"But…"

"He's fine. Fine but incredibly stupid and about to be knocked back into unconsciousness once he wakes up. Back up a bit so we don't have to waste any time chucking him onboard, okay?" she fumed, more of an order than the question implied.

"Will do," the on-edge Digimon replied, pumping his pistons back and creaking the four carriages back into life slowly, advancing back until the boy was aligned with the last car.

"Stop there," Rika said, putting her palm out flat. "Thanks for the ride," she added, a mere formality, not even accompanied with eye contact as she stormed back towards the boy and Ryo, eyes burning with intent. Henry paid her a worried glance, certain that this turn of events could only worsen her already sunken mood. A moody Rika did not make a great travel companion, or, indeed, if they ever found their partners again, teammate. He couldn't understand Takato's actions either, and had audibly breathed a sigh of relief when Rika had rushed up with alarming speed and shoved him aside. It was an extremely close call, and a completely unnecessary one.

"So…uh…where do you need to go?"

Henry took a moment to register the source of the voice. "Well, wherever you're going really. We've caused you trouble enough. Uh…where are you going?"

"Wherever the tracks take me."

"That's good for me."

Henry glanced back down the single line to Rika and Ryo, the former begrudgingly (after a few shakes and slaps failed) helping the latter hoist the unconscious boy onto the train's rear carriage, neither remotely certain about what had caused his sudden bout of narcolepsy. Henry frowned, looking to the D-Reaper-torn desert behind, and thanking whatever god could exist for their luck, as tainted by strangeness as it was.

The blue-haired boy followed the rails off into the distance with his eyes, musing about where they could possibly go over that far horizon. To another level, perhaps? Maybe to Terriermon? It didn't matter too much.

Anywhere was better than right here, right now.

"_So much for a brave new Digital World…"_

**TO BE CONTINUED…**

* * *

Hope you enjoyed this latest chapter. It shares almost no actual text with the original, as this is the kind of chapter that was better to write afresh with the same plot than rewrite and improve the original chapter. As a writer, I prefer this method, and it works well in situations like this where a chapter can be boiled down to a few key events and discoveries.

Oh, and as an aside to my readers who are well ahead of rewrite readers – please don't put spoilers of the future in your reviews. Obscure mentions are fine, but don't actually give anything that can give any of the games away. And, to my new readers, I assure you, there are plenty of games that can be given away in my bundle of mysteries I call Dimensions, hehe.

**To continue reading from this point on in the original, go to about half way through Chapter 3 (and brace yourself for some discontinuity). Otherwise, wait for the next rewrite chapter.**

Until next time…

B.C.


	10. The Tender Engine

**DISCLAIMER: I don't own Digimon, but I do own the original characters introduced in this story and my other stories (except where stated otherwise here or elsewhere by myself).**

**A/N: **Thanks to Crazyeight for beta reading.

* * *

**DIMENSIONS**

_**BOOK ONE**_

_Links_

**Rewrite**

By Blazing Chaos

* * *

**CHAPTER TEN**

_The Tender Engine_

* * *

**THURSDAY, 15****TH**** NOVEMBER 2007**

* * *

_**DIGITAL WORLD**_

_**Desert Level**_

_**05:29 UTC**_

The world was moving. Moving when it shouldn't have been, in fact. The desert wasn't this up and down, side-to-side, clickety-clack before...was it?

Not just that, but the world had changed rather significantly from what he could distinctly remember. Gone was the endless vista of desert and the blue Earth orb above, all clenched in darkness, replaced by a similarly dark and rather more cramped…box, of some kind. The boy's eyes took a while to shift the sleep from his mind, and he began to sit up, rubbing his head as he did so.

How did he get here? What had he missed? He searched for his most recent memory, as he began to register that his newfound location looked distinctly like…a train carriage. A pretty old-style one, at that. Where were his friends?

Reaching his feet, he quickly sighted the trio on separate seats nearby, all pretty much fast asleep, their bags placed on the opposite seats to them just like his was. Had they put him on here? For that matter, how did they find a train in the Digital World? So little of this made any sense.

He frowned, turning around and heading over to the window for the bay seats where he had been sleeping, giving it a hard tug as he opened it up wide. Cold, digital air rushed in, but the speed was not sufficient for it to immediately wake his companions. Or worse, just Rika, leaving no-one else to defend him against her probably quite-angered state. She was in a bad enough mood on the walk…here…wait, how _did_ he get here? He found himself drawing a blank.

Takato stuck his head out the window. At the front of the four carriages, sure enough, was a large locomotive. One thing did come back to him upon seeing it: Locomon. He remembered scanning the Digimon…but…then what?

"_At least this means we don't have to walk much longer," _he sighed and mused, closing the window, pausing for a moment on the sight of the desert and Earth orb through it. Placing his hand on the window, he frowned deeper. _"I'll be okay mom." _This time, she didn't get a chance to write him a note. He'd run away too quickly, something he still found himself regretting. He didn't want to make the woman mad, worried or upset. She didn't deserve it. But…he also didn't want to lose Guilmon. He didn't deserve this either.

Momentarily, he pondered if the portal still existed. Had their rush been pointless, and potentially their downfall? He hoped not.

"Mm…" he heard from behind, glimpsing back to Rika and gulping. She was nearest the window he had opened, unfortunately, and the nearest to his bay of seats, lying one over and across from him, stretched out along the length of one side of a bay.

"_Please don't wake up…"_

He tiptoed across to her in a hurry, hands out like someone trying to avoid dropping something. If he were a cat, his hair would've been standing on end. After all, he was heading right into the Tiger's den.

"_Is she waking up?" _He stared at her eyes and face, looking for some sign that she was about to stir, while he leant on the aisle-side edge of the seat on which she slept. For someone who could show such passion, like against her mother earlier, she looked so harmless and innocent when she slept. _"Please don't wake up. I don't want this nice and safe moment to end. I don't want to lose my head."_

What was going through her mind? What did she dream about? He still couldn't be sure, after all this time, that Digimon had dreams, but he knew that Rika did. She had to. Would they be like his? Could anyone be even close to the insanity of his dreams?

"_Maybe she's dreaming about me," _a vile voice crept from the corner of his mind, that voice which said all that you didn't want to think. He immediately tried to dismiss the concept, but couldn't help but get the diary out of his mind. God only knew he had had his fair share of dreams about Jeri in his time. Were girls the same? Given they had such an appreciation of romance, maybe they were. Maybe they were worse.

Then again, this was Rika. She wasn't exactly your typical girl. Then again, were any of the four of them really typical?

The train lurched violently as it passed over a bit of bad rail, and Takato was stopped mid-thought, his thoughts turning from such high concepts to rather lower ones: namely, was he about to be killed? He slipped from the seat-edge he was leaning on, and tumbled towards her, reaching out one hand to grab the seat back.

Unfortunately, his other hand landed squarely on her leg.

Like a boiling saucepan, it leapt away rapidly, scurrying behind his back while his feet froze, his body locked in an awkward leaning-over position. Her eyes flittered open, and from her lips came a groggy question. "Renamon?"

"_Come on Takato, you can do a convincing impression…" _he thought to himself, opening his mouth. This would have to be award-win…

"Oh, it's just you," Rika said, not sounding even remotely pleased with him as her head fell back down. "Did you wake me up?"

"Uh, not intentionally," he pleaded, laughing sheepishly (and quietly, ever-aware that Henry and Ryo were still asleep). "Heh, I was just sort of leaning here, watching you sleep, and the train…"

"Hold up," Rika whispered – one of those whispers forced out as if to imitate a far louder voice. "You were watching me sleep?"

"No, no, I definitely wasn't…uh…well, I sort of…"

"You know loverboy, you're sort of bordering on outright perversion here."

"Yeah, I know…I mean…uh, I'm not loverboy…" he flustered. How did she always manage to lock him in such difficult situations? "I don't love you." It was one of those over-compensating moments he instantly regretted, as the words of the letter flashed across his mind. He so desperately wanted to correct himself, again, but he knew he couldn't. Whatever he did, the damage had been done, and would no doubt stick for a while.

A slight frown tampered with the edges of her face for just a second, just enough to make Takato hurt, before she clearly forced it down, rolling her eyes to clear it, a reaction that only twisted the dagger into Takato even more. "Geez, you take everything a step too far, don't you Takato? I'd love to know how your mind works," she tried to pin the blame on him, averting her gaze and biting down solidly into her lip.

Damn it, why had she let him say that. She was happy enough not knowing what she highly suspected was the truth. _"No, wait…I don't care…I'm happy not to care. If there is something, it's just a phase, and a reality check like this will kill this stupid phase stone dead!" _she mentally ranted to herself, staring across the carriage, but she knew it was useless.

Of course he didn't feel the same way. Why would he?

"_Love isn't _like_. He might still like me. I can make something out of that," _came Rika's version of that vile voice, which she rapidly suppressed. "Never watch me sleep, got that? It's just…weird!"

"_Wait, she's angry with _me_ now?"_ "Uh…yeah, right."

"Good. Now let me get back to sleep."

"Wait, I have so many questions!"

Rika huffed, sitting up and glaring at him, all the while whispering. "Like what, huh?"

"Well, for starters, how did I get here?"

Rika was about to respond, before there was a flash in her eyes, a flash of realisation and thought. At first Takato felt quite pleased about this – it was a sign that maybe he was onto something here, and maybe her hurriedness with him was a bit of poor judgement on her part.

And then she spoke. Well, after grabbing his collar.

"You have some bloody explaining to do."

Takato gulped. So much for that. "Uh…do I? What about?"

Rika opened her mouth, but in a rare show of sensibility in spite of anger she noticed Henry and Ryo sleeping nearby, and decided that she couldn't quite whisper this much for this long without waking the pair of them. "Next carriage. Now," she finally said, Takato nodding fearfully and obediently, like a gun was held to his chest.

She let him go and pushed him back, and he staggered a bit before wandering down the carriage to the end door. Getting to her feet, she pushed her hand into her forehead in stress. She didn't even feel truly awake yet, and now she was confronted with _this_. How could he not remember? How could he have been so stupid and then completely forget? What was wrong with…?

Hearing the door close, she glanced up, seeing Takato had left, and took a step towards it.

The world suddenly twisted in her mind, and she had an odd feeling. Something was not right. Something about what she was doing felt off, like heading the wrong direction to school. Or…

Her feet began to pound as it hit her like, well, Locomon almost did. She threw herself through the door, and whispered a shout down the railway tracks leading away into the night: "TAKATO!"

"Over here," came a voice from her right, Takato still intact and standing on the right hand side of the balcony, leaning on the railing. "Don't let the door…" he began, hurriedly, before it clunked. "Shut. Never mind."

Rika twisted round, looking to where she expected a door handle to be. Nothing. She fed her hands around the edge of the frame, but to no avail. The mechanism had shut on it, and there wasn't really any space on the balcony to manoeuvre any kind of kick-down. "Great, we're stuck and it's cold. Did the handle fall off or something?" Were all the other doors like this? Were they already open? She wished she'd paid more attention to the interior of the dark carriage. They'd come in this way, hadn't they? This was so annoying!

"Beats me. You could've told me that it was the other way."

"I didn't realise at first."

"Ugh," she huffed, leaning back on the left hand side of the balcony, opposite him. She felt able to talk a bit louder here, but it barely made up for their current entrapment. Her eyes fell to one side. While the train moved relatively slowly (a request from Henry after the trio had found it impossible to get to sleep with the highly jerky ride at speed), it was clearly faster than either of them could run and they would no doubt sustain some injuries in trying to jump off in the first place. They were stuck, illuminated only by whatever kept the night here alight. Oh, and a number of data streams, the quantity of which seemed to vary wildly. They seemed to stray away from this main track, although whether being sucked up by one of them would actually be beneficial she wasn't sure. It wasn't worth the risk, even if they could find their partners. They could end up _anywhere_! And maybe not even all together.

Takato knew there was a reason they came out here. He didn't want to press on it yet, but he knew sooner or later Rika would. At least he could have some measure of control over the conversation if he raised it. _"Just like ripping off a band-aid…come on Takato…" _"So…uh…what do I have to explain about?"

"What about? Oh, I don't know, how about the fact you ran _towards_ Locomon and almost killed yourself, and then I had to almost kill myself to save you?" So much for a measure of control.

"Wait, I did what?"

Takato's mind was spinning. Was he dreaming? This just didn't make sense. He would remember doing something stupid like that, and he was sure that Rika would mention some significant bump to the head that'd knocked his memories out of his ear. Not that it made much difference to the fact that he had done something that stupid in the first place – what could possibly have come over him?

"And, not only didn't you even seem to care or _thank_ that I had just saved you, but you called me babe!"

"_Seriously? Is that her priority?" _"I don't remember any of that."

"How can you not?"

"I don't. Really Rika, I really, really don't."

Rika was ready to bite back, but there was a distinct sincerity in Takato's eyes, that annoying honesty had crippled her on many an instance. But how? How could this be true? Amnesia? Did he just not believe what he had done? But this was Takato, the dreamer – hardly the kind of person to be rooted in reality. So, in the end, she just replied with a reserved huff. "You'd better work it out Takato. I won't always be there to save your butt."

"Uh…yeah…thanks for that Rika, I really appreciate it."

"Just doing my job." She didn't seem too happy about it. "Which is apparently keeping you alive."

"Hehe…" Takato laughed nervously, but his mind had been spinning ever since he woke up. Just what had happened? Why had he done that? So many questions, and no answers whatsoever. None of this sounded like anything he'd do.

"Even when you act like an idiot. Worse than usual, in fact. I mean, come on, you've done suicidal things before but they at least have a _chance_ of succeeding. What were you planning to do, grab the train or something?"

"I really don't know Rika. None of this makes any sense at all."

"Ugh. Let's just go to sleep Takato," she sighed, resigning to not knowing and slipping her back down the balcony until her feet stretched out, not caring that it meant that Takato would have to sleep with his legs in an uncomfortable position at the other end of the balcony, either with his knees hunched up or his ankles pressed to one side. He'd made her have to sleep in the cold, so he would have to put up and shut up.

Still, she felt pretty mean as she watched him settle into his newfound situation without a word, keeping his legs up slightly. She even gave a bit of ground, and shifted her legs over to one side, the boy giving a shocking amount of unspoken thanks for the move. "Night Rika."

"Night Gogglehead," she said dismissively and sardonically, and then immediately hated herself for doing so once her eyes closed. Why was she being so cruel?

* * *

"I don't love you."

* * *

Oh yeah, that was it. As much as she insisted otherwise. Even if this was a simple phase she was going through, she couldn't force herself to treat his words as the release she needed from it. Instead, it left her with a dead emptiness, and a longing for what she actually wanted him to say, a longing for the time before those words left his lips. But, if he knew she was thinking that…

Who was she kidding? This was Takato! If he knew, he'd try to make things up, even when it was none of his fault. He'd feel it was his responsibility that he didn't feel the same way, like he somehow had to fix it. Stupid Gogglehead. Stupid…brilliant…Gogglehead.

Takato's eyes closed, but couldn't help briefly opening to look to her, eyes clamped shut and misery on her face as it twitched from thought. What exactly was she thinking about? The huge number of events that'd happened today, each no doubt grabbing for a piece of her mind, left him completely unable to guess. Forgetting what she had to think about, he found that his thoughts were just as demanding: what had happened to him that he couldn't remember? Why didn't he seem like himself at all in doing what he had done? What would he do about returning the diary to Rika? Where was Guilmon? Could he fulfil his promise? To Guilmon? To Seiko? To his mother? A thousand things shouted at him, and there was one outcome.

"Can't sleep?"

"Haven't even tried. So you can't then?" he said to Rika, the girl sighing deeply from where she was opposite him, her eyes now wide open.

"Too much on my mind."

"Like what?"

"None of your business."

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"When I want to, I'll say."

"When?"

"If."

"Oh."

"What's keeping you awake? Mr Dreamer, not even trying to sleep."

"I've got a lot on my mind too."

He secretly hoped she'd take the bait, and ask lots of questions about what was on his mind, so he could quite easily then ask the same of her and call her a hypocrite for demanding from him what she herself couldn't offer. But, at the same time, he knew he didn't want to be that cruel. He was easier with his inner thoughts than she was, his shared frequently with friends whereas hers were normally shared only with bystanders in her greatest moments of despair, and even then barely went further than a curse if they weren't really people she was close to. Was she close enough to him to ever tell him the kind of thing that went through her mind? He liked to think that, because she crushed on him, she'd be more open, but…this was Rika. Even Rika with a crush was still Rika. Besides, the crush probably left her with plenty of subjects she would never be able to talk to him about as a result. He knew that when it came to telling someone things honestly, it helped to have no taboos, and so, in spite of Jeri being ever so nice to him, he found himself more prone to confiding in Henry (with Terriermon's absence if possible). Those you loved the most were those you kept the most from.

She didn't take the bait. "I find that hard to believe."

"I promise Guilmon I'd bring him back, and I'm still not sure I'll manage that. And I'm really worried I've upset my mom, and…" Wait, was he…damn it, she'd baited him instead. He was bleeding his thoughts without her even asking.

"Your mother will be fine," she interjected forcefully after his silence went on for a long while.

"What about yours?"

"She'll be fine too, Takato," Rika insisted, glaring at him when he opened his mouth to say something again and stopping the point before it was ever said. This was a topic she wasn't about to talk about in a hurry. She promptly changed the subject. "It's not just what's on my mind making me not be sleepy anyhow. Have you noticed that it's still morning for us? We barely just got up. I mean, I know I went to bed a bit later than usual, but it's hardly anything. Still, I think Henry said something about going to bed really late after sorting out Hypnos with his father, and Ryo got the early train…so I guess they sort of deserve their sleep."

"I just had a sleep anyhow."

Rika didn't look too pleased to be reminded about _that_. "You'd better not be turning into a narcoleptic, Gogglehead," she said sternly. Her use of his nickname was surprisingly erratic, coming and going, and he wasn't quite sure what to think of it. To her, the word 'Takato' usually seemed like a vicar's swear – rarely heard from her lips, at least in public.

"I promise."

"Ugh, you and your stupid promises."

"I just…uh…"

"Never mind," she quickly averted, noticing that her words had been quite hurtful. She seemed to have a habit of that this morning. She sighed. "What do you want from me Takato?"

"Huh? What do you mean?" She didn't think _he_ was the one with the crush, right? Stuck on a balcony with no escape, his over thinking mind went into overdrive about the meaning behind her question.

"You always want to know what's going on in my mind, what I'm thinking, whether I'm okay. Why?"

"I'm just…uh…being friendly. Doing what friends do. Uh, that is what friends do, right?" Takato said, words he would never usually have reason to doubt. But, down the barrel of Rika's gun, these were words which became as suspect as 'dulce et decorum est pro patria mori', 'we had to put your hamster to sleep' or 'I need to wash my hair'.

"How should I know?"

"Well, uh, you have friends."

"Yeah, but that doesn't mean I understand what they're meant to do. And with you, it's always so…overblown. How do you care so much? Why do you care so much?"

"I-I just want to make sure people are okay, that's all. I really hate seeing people get hurt, or being down."

"You think I like it? Are you saying I wouldn't?"

"N-No, I'm not saying that. I just mean, well…I don't know really."

"Ugh."

Rika went silent for a moment, looking to cast herself deep into thought to Takato's eyes. In reality, she was casting herself into deep loathing. Why was she shouting at Takato? The concept that this boy existed was one of the few things that had kept her sane in the weeks since Takato's departure; it had provided a distraction, another problem to occupy her mind away from her issues with her mother and the misery from the loss of Renamon. So why was she now directing all of her anger onto him? Was his emotional openness a bad thing? Was his worry for her a bad thing? But why didn't he just accept she was depressed, or down, and didn't want to talk about it? Couldn't he wait until she was more open, and, if she wasn't, merely accept that he couldn't do anything to help?

But he was Takato. Accepting helplessness wasn't really a trait of his. Here was the boy who combated a massive pig tearing up Shinjuku by screaming a lot. The boy who made a flag to keep their team together. The boy who was the last one fighting against Beelzemon. Giving up was hardly something he did. Hell, even standing in front of a train fitted his personality in a twisted way.

"What do you_ think_ is going on Gogglehead?"

"Huh?"

"What do you _think_ is on my mind?"

He had not expected this. What could he say? Her mother, his own weird actions, the crush, Renamon, maybe even others things besides? He couldn't let on that he knew more than he knew though. If he told her he knew what she felt…it'd make things so uncomfortable. Being stuck here could give them a chance to talk, sure, but it could also give Rika a chance to retreat into her shell in the worst way: without an escape. And it could completely destroy their chances for a proper resolution.

"Well…uh…you seemed pretty mad at your mother."

"What for?"

"You shouted about her not being there when you wanted her there."

"What else?"

"Well…I think you're probably missing Renamon. I mean, I'm missing Guilmon, and you two are even closer in a way since you do that psychic thing."

"What else?"

"I did some weird stuff a few hours ago that you don't quite get."

"And what else?"

"Uh…" _"Does she know I read the diary?" _Without mentioning the crush, he had nothing else more to say. Did she think he did? Was she testing if he suspected anything? Or was she testing if he had the guts to voice his suspicions? "I don't know."

He didn't know yet. She wasn't being that obvious. She still had a way out of this, if she wanted it. She could just push away from the crush, pretend it didn't exist, let it be starved of oxygen. Takato didn't suspect it, and certainly no-one else had any reason to. She could simply ignore it, and no-one would ever be the wiser.

"You're right. So if you know all that's going through my mind, what on earth do you want to know about me? What can you possibly want to extract? A sob story, an explanation, what? Those things make me depressed, okay, but I don't think blubbering about them to you just because you give me an opportunity to _show my heart_," she said in a mocking voice. "I'm not like that," she lied. How she knew she was lying, she wasn't sure herself: she'd never really had a moment of being that open, except maybe with her grandma when she was younger, or Renamon. But she knew she wasn't like that. She wasn't about to admit it to him though.

"An explanation, I guess."

"An explanation of what exactly?"

"Why…I don't know..."

"Why I'm like this?"

"Yes?"

"Well, it's really tragic," she began, frowning deeply and looking sadly towards him. "You see, when I was a child, I always got really excited on Christmas Day. Once though, I rushed downstairs, and there was mommy and grandma, putting out all the presents. And I cried and ran to my room."

Takato frowned, remembering his own story of learning 'the truth'.

"And then, I heard this clip-clopping on the ceiling, and I looked out the window, and went outside."

"Santa Claus?"

"No, don't be ridiculous. It was a reindeer, and a baby reindeer, talking reindeer! And then Bambi's mother got shot by hunters, and Bambi ran through the streets of Tokyo." She mimed running with her fingers. "Meanwhile, Santa was in court, but all these bags of mail turned up addressed to him, and it was proved he wasn't mad. And finally, I shot JR, but it was all a dream so none of that matters. Oh, and Haruhi Suzumiya is God."

"That's not funny, you know?"

Rika folded her arms. "I don't have an upstairs Takato, I live in a one-storey house. And I don't have some simple, tragic explanation as to why I'm like this. You're not a psychiatrist, and I'm not your patient, okay?"

Takato found himself at his limits too. Just why did she have to shoot down every attempt he made to get close to her? To understand her? With her current situation more than any other time, why didn't she want him close? The harder you forced it with her, the more she seemed to resist, and now she was openly mocking him for it. If she felt guilty for doing so, she wasn't showing it.

She felt guilty for mocking him, as much as she had some sick amusement from stringing him along like that with her increasingly contrived story. Why was she doing this? All she had to say is that she didn't want to talk, end of story. Why did she have to persecute him for being him? But why did he have to be him? Couldn't he just be…normal? _"A normal Takato. Now that would be ridiculous, even in this place."_

"Is it about your father?"

Rika blinked in surprise. That was…unexpected. How had he made that link? For the first time since "I don't love you", she found herself not sure how to respond. "Uh…"

Takato, noticing the pause, quickly rushed to explain. It was a long shot, sure, but…it was something he had always wondered about. And right now, without being able to sleep to pass by the next few hours and without Rika producing any productive conversation that he could use to help her out, it was his only hope. He didn't want a few hours of trivial conversation, after all. He wanted to cheer her up, right here, right now. "I've noticed he's, well, not there, and I wondered how that affects you."

The look on Rika's face told him he was playing with fire. "It doesn't. Yes, he's gone, but who cares? Never did anything for me anyhow."

"B-But, I mean, they always say about father figures and stuff…"

"That it helps? What, you think this aggressive, stubborn girl is something to do with the fact that daddy was never there to hug me?"

"Uh…maybe?"

Rika wanted to say no, but she couldn't quite bring herself to it: she too had contemplated the idea many a time. "I really doubt it Takato. And even if it were possible, how should I know? I can't meet _me_ from another reality and see how I'd be if he were still here, so why should I dwell on it?"

She was still on the defensive. Was there any way past this? There had to be something underneath, something to make all this effort from Takato worthwhile. But she obviously knew what he was trying to do, and was endlessly ramping up her defences more and more. Her explanations became shorter and more generic, her wit more sardonic, her insults more biting. Castle Rika was fortifying itself.

"Do you remember what he was like?" he said, taking a different tack and hoping that unnerving her was the key to success in their unplanned battle of minds.

"He was a dad."

"Like my dad?"

"No…more…serious. I think. I don't really remember. I was a kid." There it was again, a brief spurt of honesty followed by generic statements and self-protection. Was he breaking her? Was she letting her guard down?

"How old were you when he left?"

"Three. Do you remember what your life was like then?" she pushed the questioning onto him.

He wasn't about to fall for that again. "A few things." He wasn't about to give her anything to work with. This had to be about her. He had to get through to her, to let her know she could share things, that she wasn't alone. There had to be a way. Everyone had to have a weakness. Right? "Do you remember anything?"

She closed her eyes, wincing. She'd almost forgotten it. "Arguing. Mom and Dad, always fighting. Grandma had to step in every time. I had to stay in my room. I never understood why. Yeah, they had me young, but… It just seemed so unfair. They were meant to love each other. That's what all the moms and dads on TV did. But…"

Opening her eyes briefly, she saw Takato's face. Pleased, almost…happy.

It was sick.

"Oh go to hell."

"Huh?"

"Is this how you get your kicks Takato? Making other people dig up their past?"

"No, no, really Rika."

She once again found herself shouting to push up her cheeks, forcing the tears out of view. "How is this going to help me?"

"I d-don't know Rika." She could be really imposing when she shouted…really imposing. Worse than an angered schoolteacher or even his own mother. There was something so…unpredictable about it, only made worse by the fact her shouting was 'restrained' lest she wake up those behind the door, even from this distance. And what too made it unpredictable was the distinct sense Takato got, from a distant sadness in the voice, that he was onto something here. And yet, his own sense of self-preservation – in spite of his knowledge Rika would never truly harm him – held him back from digging deeper.

"Then don't bother."

"Wait…do you want to be helped then?"

"N-no. And even if I did, I wouldn't go to some shrink – Jeri hasn't had much fun with hers and her problems are a thousand times worse than mine. And, no offence, but I wouldn't go to any of you guys either."

"Why not?"

"Because…because…" she searched for the words, thinking what she wanted to say. _"You're part of it all." _"It'd be too…difficult," she actually said. "People judge people, even if they don't intend to."

He knew what she meant. "I wouldn't."

Why did he have to make this so hard? She really wanted to just lie down and go back to sleep, or, at least, return to attempting to go to sleep. But she had changed from who she used to be, the girl who neither wanted nor cared for others; a change she found herself regretting at this very moment. And, at the end of the day, even if he was digging really deep, this was Takato, and she couldn't just ignore him like that. It felt like kicking a kitten.

"What about your grandma?"

"She's helpful and all but…if she knew, it'd make life just as difficult."

Takato held back from asking about her mother: if Rika's earlier rant at her was indicative, the pair of them had trouble enough talking full stop, let alone about difficult things. "So who would you talk to?"

Rika frowned, glancing out across the desert. "I'd…I would have…talked to Renamon…" She had to be out there somewhere. Rika had so much on her mind she needed to release but…could she even tell Renamon? While the Digimon was loyal by her side, much like Seiko she had the habit of trying to convince her that her thoughts could be wrong, whether it was about her mother or otherwise. Not that Rika didn't want to be convinced otherwise, but she wanted to come to terms with such a belief on her own time and through events themselves – she would never simply be convinced by someone telling her abstractly that "oh, your mother is trying so hard" when events so clearly said the opposite.

"You really miss her, huh?"

"No Takato, I barely remember her name," Rika said in her standard sardonic voice. "Of course I miss her. I mean, it's not like with you and losing the regular hits to the chest; it's like losing your shadow."

Hearing Rika's saddening voice, Takato countered with a burst of cheery optimism. "Well, that'll all change soon. We'll find them, and then the old days will be back again. Only, without the D-Reaper." _"Or Leomon…" _he mused, but didn't want to say it. He was trying to be optimistic, after all.

"How can you believe that so easily? I mean, our parents are right: we had enough trouble finding one Digimon last time."

"I don't know, I'm just hopeful. Aren't you? Isn't that why you came along?"

"I just grabbed the chance we had, slim as it is. Better than staying at home, but that doesn't mean I think we're going to be successful or anything."

"Not successful?"

"Come home empty handed or die."

"Wow, you're an optimist."

"Oh, I'm sorry, my father took that too."

"Did he?"

"Sarcasm."

"Oh." Takato chewed his lip. He felt like he was at the end of his tether with what he could work with. He couldn't ask more deeply about her father, even though the subject was raised – everything he wanted to know about the man was negative in some way…or… "Do you have any good memories of your father?"

"What?" She seemed to have a short patience now with the topic, as he'd expected.

"Well, I mean, I keep saying all this as if your father was bad and it's obvious he…um…meant something to you? So, um, I wanted to know what…I mean, what was good about him. Not that I didn't expect anything to be, but…"

Rika decided that letting loose one piece of information was better than hearing Takato endlessly ramble. "The playground."

"What'd you do there?"

"Playground stuff. He'd usually push me on the swings, higher and higher, and…sometimes, if mom had got at him for being too risky, he'd just push me gently. And I'd sing…I mean, sit there and…" Rika quickly regretted her verbal slip.

"Sing?" This was unexpected. Singing? Rika? Really? Takato had never even considered the two in the same sentence.

"Like kids do," Rika retorted, trying to lessen the impact of what she had accidentally said. "Dad always loved hearing me sing."

"Are you…I mean, were you…uh…good?"

Rika shrugged. "Dad was hardly going to say I wasn't, was he?"

"Have you sung since?"

Her brief moment of surprise and thought at the question gave him his answer. She gritted her teeth as she saw this look on his face, and jumped ahead of him. "Only for me. And I'm probably tone-deaf or something: not like I have anyone to tell me."

"I could tell you."

"I don't want to know. I don't _like_ singing."

"Because it reminds you of your father?"

"No! Because I don't like it, okay? It's…not me."

"Not you? Wait, are you worried what people would think?"

"No," Rika insisted. It wasn't…was it? She was like this out of genuine annoyance at others; it wasn't some kind of persona that she maintained. This _was_ her, and it was who she wanted to be. Was it? "It just cheers me up at times. And no, I'm not going to sing now, before you ask."

"I wasn't going to," Takato lied, supressing his sheer curiosity about such an…unnatural sight. "Uh…is that your only good memory of your father?"

"I don't know, I probably have others. But I don't actively search for them. And it's not like it'd be some kind of link between us if he turned up tomorrow. He's just…a man, a random bloke, probably as dickheaded as the rest of them. No offence to you or your gender either – girls are just as bad."

"Have you seen him since he left?" The words felt like the first time he had swung his lance as Gallantmon. The feeling that you were truly playing with some kind of power here, like a mistake would have consequences. He just hoped Rika would respond in the right way.

"Seven years ago, in some random supermarket. Thank God, Grandma was there, otherwise I bet they'd have just argued like always. Never mattered when I was there." Oddly, Takato got the feeling he was talking to Rika honestly again. There was emotion to these words, rather than restraint. How long would she be 'open' for? "He had some new girlfriend. And mom was in one of those rare weeks she hadn't brought home some moron with nothing between his ears for a week at the most. That's if she came home at all." Very little had changed, apart from the fact that her mother's boyfriends (at least, those she saw) now simply held more senior positions in the modelling world. She was moving into that weird world after a model's 'prime', when a good model would be immortal and an unmemorable one would fall to earth faster than an asteroid. Her mother was well enough known for Rika to be sure she'd be the former. Maybe that was why she'd been so absent? She cursed herself for trying to sympathise with her mother's side. "The poor girl probably ran for the hills when she saw his baggage. Not that I feel sorry for him. I'd just stopped caring. About anything."

"So you do think your father is to blame then?"

"What?" Rika began, before she really registered what he was suggesting. "No. Possibly. Whatever, I don't care." She rubbed a hand into her forehead. "When is everything ever that simple anyway," she mumbled.

"I see."

"So, are you happy Takato? Are your excavations over? Because I really didn't want or need to bring any of that crap up, in case you couldn't tell." Rika felt…broken. But, somehow, it was in a good way, the feeling of bringing up those old memories being weighed against the…relief, was it? She couldn't really tell. But she wasn't about to admit it in any way.

"I…am if you are." He was…pleased. But he couldn't say he was happy. Who would be happy to see their friend like this?

She smiled. But it was a sadistic smile, not a 'happy' one, her tongue pressing against the back of her teeth. "I think your imagination can fill in what will happen if you mention a word of this to anyone."

He gulped.

"Exactly. But…uh…did I help…at all?"

"Probably not."

"Oh."

Seeing his head fall in disappointment and dejection, she found herself forced to add a "but…thanks. I guess. For at least trying."

"Uh…you're…welcome?" he said cautiously, worried he was falling into a trap. He'd uncovered something…was he about to be flung over the balcony and onto the tracks? At this speed, it probably _wouldn't_ have killed him, but this was Rika. She'd find a way.

"Not even remotely."

"Heh," he laughed uneasily. "It's what friends do."

"_Friends_ also let other friends try to sleep, am I right?" Now she sounded almost…happy. In her usual, slightly sadistic way that left Takato completely uncertain as to whether she genuinely was.

"You think you can sleep now?"

"Your talking has tired me out."

"You're welcome, I suppose," he chuckled, as she leant back on the balcony, nodded lightly and closed her eyes.

Takato promptly did the same, in spite of the fact that it was a far from comfortable sleeping position. Hopefully he'd have better luck with sleeping this time round.

"Oh, and one last thing. Don't let me catch you watching me sleep, okay?"

"Okay," Takato yawned, too far into the process of trying to drift off to let his mind contemplate the unusual wording and 'amused' tone.

Rika stifled a smile as she found her mind oddly more relaxed, and tried to concentrate too on ignoring the fact that this balcony was far from the seats indoors in terms of comfort, and they were hardly perfect. Still…she found it hard to be mad at him right now, as much as she wanted to be. This idiot had dug at her, broken her heart (as conflicted with her mind as it tended to be) and brought back things she didn't want to remember, all of which she hated him for.

But he'd been a friend. Someone, and something, she'd missed, with consequences she so sorely knew.

A few months ago, a friend alone would be unimaginable. Here, now, she was letting loose, albeit with a lot of restraint, things she'd expected to take to her deathbed. That was progress. But was it good? Her mind didn't get a chance to contemplate the question, as she drifted off into the world of sleep, just as Takato did – before either of them could be awoken by the other's snores.

So no one heard the voice, drifting across the desert, as it contemplated what it had just witnessed before its own eyes, disdain in its hardened grimace.

"Sappy crap."

**TO BE CONTINUED…**

* * *

**A/N: **And so we have another 'almost entirely rewritten from scratch' chapter, and hopefully a good one. I wanted to go into a lot more detail this time around with this heart-to-resisting heart, and I hope it came across well, even if it was a bit too long for my liking. This was my first ever-deep conversation in the original, so it's quite a poignant moment to be redoing it. It's always interesting doing a scene between just two characters, let alone a whole chapter, as there's a very different dynamic to it all.

**To read on from here in the original version, go to chapter 4 (and prepare for some discontinuity).**

As for the rewrite, I'm heading back to write Book Seven for a bit so expect a (short, hopefully) while without updates. My apologies, but I've found I work a lot better when focusing on one fic at a time than jumping back and forth. At some point, I shall continue with Stratagems too, although since it too is rather dependent on some events on Book Seven (again) passing, I think I'll wait a while to continue with that. It's my target to finish Book Seven by the end of the summer, as unrealistic as that seems now, so I shall have to get a move on.

Until next time…

B.C.


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